After typing that line, Li Shuoxing was about to exit the memo when he suddenly noticed a pink heart had been added to the corner of the memo.
Em?
Isn’t this Love Bar app logo a little arrogant?
It’s one thing to mark the outside, but it’s even invaded the app?
Li Shuoxing was upset and tapped on the heart. The next second, a door appeared in front of the little person.
Two people: “…”
Su Mingqian held the doorknob and peered in. When he looked back, a text bubble appeared. “It’s the door out.”
Li Shuoxing understood. He muttered, “So it’s the button to leave. I thought this app really had puppy traits, making a mark wherever it goes…”
Through the heart, the two exited the memo.
Li Shuoxing lifted the cub and carried him all the way to the Love Bar app icon.
The seemingly normal icon cracked open again when it touched Su Mingqian.
But Su Mingqian was in a daze and didn’t open the window to enter it at first.
He saw the words below the app.
“Love Bar”.
Why is this app called “Love Bar”?
Doubts arose in Su Mingqian’s mind, but before he could think about them, he felt his body being gently shaken.
Ximu was reminding him to get into the game.
Su Mingqian came to his senses. He buried the doubts in the back of his mind, opened the pink heart and, just as he’d come out, went back in.
Li Shuoxing entered at the same time.
The game opened again and the familiar picture filled the screen in a flash.
Li Shuoxing couldn’t wait to call out, “Cub?”
Su Mingqian responded, “Ximu.”
They both heard each other’s voices.
They breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
The days without voice were too hard.
Once they were able to communicate smoothly, Li Shuoxing’s spirits relaxed.
He watched the game rather leisurely and saw a system email fly across the screen like a paper plane, reminding Li Shuoxing to check the update log as usual after each update.
It was to check this email that Li Shuoxing entered the game.
He opened the game mailbox.
But this time, something unexpected happened. The system notification popped up before the mailbox.
[System: The system has detected design defects such as “player and lover cannot communicate” after the update.]
[System: The system has completed the patch online.]
[System: Do you update the patch? Yes/No]
System, it seems you’ve finally realised that you couldn’t even get the voice working after 24 hours of updating.
Remarkable, remarkable.
A lollipop for you.
Li Shuoxing ground his teeth and tapped yes.
A loading bar immediately popped up on the screen.
The loading bar loaded very quickly, loading to the end in about a minute or two.
At this time, a new pop-up window appeared.
[System: Your lover’s range of actions in your phone needs to be authorised by you.]
[System: Which of the following apps would you like to authorise your lover to access?]
A long, long list jumped to the top of the screen.
The list contained all the apps on Li Shuoxing’s phone, with more detailed viewing authorisations, modifying authorisations and other functions.
Li Shuoxing got bored after reading a couple of lines, just as he’d gotten bored when reading the agreement at that time…
He dragged the list right down to the bottom and, sure enough, found the select all feature.
Li Shuoxing ticked the select all, turned back to the middle, found the more sensitive payment apps and chat apps, cancelled their permissions, and the authorisation was done.
Why make something simple so complicated.
He tapped confirm with satisfaction.
After that, the authorisation disappeared and the new item acquisition box popped up.
Li Shuoxing almost tapped off in impatience, but luckily he saw it in time and hurriedly stopped. Only then did he see that the system had sent over a pair of black leather gloves.
[Name]: Adsorption Gloves
[Note]: The gloves have an adsorption plane function. When your lover wears these gloves, they will be able to adsorb to the wallpaper and move freely on the screen.
This was a good thing.
Besides looking a little awkward, it basically solved the problem of the cub’s inconvenient mobility.
Li Shuoxing was quite satisfied. He was about to praise the system when he suddenly noticed a line of small blue text under the normal text in the note column, which read:
“More fashionable mobility items are being developed. Please wait patiently.”
Li Shuoxing: “…”
Trash system, goodbye.
He received the item, handed it to Su Mingqian and explained its use to him before tapping on the mailbox to read the update email.
From: System
Topic: Love Bar v2.01 update
[New Content]
(1) Opening of subway passage
[Update Explanation]
(1): The game officially opens the passage between the app and the outside world—the subway entrance.
The subway entrance is divided into the ordinary pedestrian passage and the pay gate passage.
The ordinary pedestrian passage connects to the player’s mobile phone. The lover can freely travel to and from the mobile phone and app through the pedestrian passage.
The pay gate passage requires a subway card to enter.
Thank you for your patience in waiting for the system to complete the update. The system has prepared a small gift for you. Please accept:
[Contribution points Ă— 100]
[Subway Experience Card Ă— 1]
[Update Notes]:
The new version of Love Bar is in the trial phase. Please actively provide feedback on your experience. The system will be updated in subsequent versions.
Feedback can be given via the reply button inside the update email.
Li Shuoxing was quite satisfied with the 100 contribution points.
But what made him more concerned and happy was the subway card below.
The update just explained that there’s a payment area at the subway entrance that requires a subway card, and the game sends me an experience card?
Although it’s all a scam, I’m gonna spend money anyway, and it’s certainly better to have experience than not.
He tapped on the subway card.
[Name]: Subway Experience Card
[Note]: A necessary item to pass through the gate passage.
[Special]: This experience card will be open for use in the next update.
Li Shuoxing: “…”
Li Shuoxing: “???”
His expression became strange.
Maintaining this strange expression, he started typing and, via the reply button that popped up when needed and never existed at ordinary times, sent his first feedback to the system update email.
“You have the ability to give me this item, so do you have the ability to tell me when the next update will be? Tell me right now when the hell the next update will be!”
Of course, the system didn’t reply.
Li Shuoxing, who sent an email and let out a sulking breath, then looked at the rest of the game menu and observed that the system narration was flashing.
He opened it, scanned a couple lines, and unexpectedly discovered that the cub had triggered the dreaming ability yesterday. In the narration’s description of the cub triggering the dreaming ability, there were several lines of garble, and a system note next to it: redundant information.
Li Shuoxing was stunned.
He combed through it a little.
At 3am, the cub triggered the dreaming effect, woke with a start and went to the lounge.
Ten minutes later, long and short garble appeared in the system narration.
Then at 3:30, the cub returned to bed to rest.
So a redundancy occurred in the system while the cub was looking at his new memories?
Li Shuoxing intuitively felt something wrong, but he couldn’t say what was wrong.
After all… it was normal for a game to have some bugs. As in this time, just after 24 hours of updating, the game was patched.
Li Shuoxing was convinced by himself. He stopped caring about the garble that appeared in the narration and opened the travel log for a look.
With a glance, he confirmed that the new content was describing the artificial intelligence.
George was the boss of the artificial intelligence.
Su Mingqian was able to talk directly with the new artificial intelligence in this description. His position in the team was obviously not low.
That meant that when George finished his closed research, he would have a very good chance of getting crucial answers…
Li Shuoxing was inwardly heartened, with more confidence about the future. He called out to Su Mingqian, “Cub, I’m ready. Let’s go out again and try out your new gloves to see if they work well.”
The game was closed and the phone screen reappeared.
The pink heart was pushed open for the second time and Su Mingqian popped his head out of it again.
He was much more proficient than the first time he came out, his short body coming out in a short stride. When he came out, he didn’t fall all the way straight down as he had the first time. The black gloves on his hands did a good job of sticking Su Mingqian to the desktop wallpaper.
Li Shuoxing observed carefully.
He watched as Su Mingqian stuck his palms to the wallpaper one by one, his whole body swaying as he moved. With each step, his body would swing, like a round little squirrel hanging in the air.
Li Shuoxing suddenly didn’t want the system to scram.
He found the adsorption gloves quite interesting.
He had begun to look forward to more and more fashionable mobility items.
For example, little wings, little cape, little broom, little flying car, little flying saucer… and so on and so forth~
The adsorption gloves allowed Su Mingqian to move freely.
But walking while hanging in mid-air wasn’t easy either.
As Su Mingqian worked hard to climb to the camera, he suddenly said, “Ximu.”
When the patch was finished, the system also gave some instructions of use.
Among them was a prompt that voice communication required the phone’s microphone function to be turned on.
Li Shuoxing was about to enable the microphone from the program when he unexpectedly found an extra microphone button with a little heart mark by the wifi in the shortcut menu.
The only problem was that there was no such shortcut button.
So…
Did the Love Bar app directly mark my phone system?
Has this malware finally gone completely malicious?
Li Shuoxing felt rather subtle. Amidst his subtle feelings, he tapped the microphone button and said, “I’m here.”
Su Mingqian: “Can I use the camera?”
Why do you ask that?
Li Shuoxing was puzzled. “Sure, you can use it.”
Su Mingqian coughed. “Then I’ll use the camera to see you?”
Li Shuoxing: “!”
Li Shuoxing: “?!”
Li Shuoxing, who was slumped on the couch, instantly sat upright and hurriedly said, “Hold on, cub, hold on a moment!”
With that, he immediately got up, dug out his dusty selfie stick from his home, fastened his phone on the selfie stick, adjusted to the perfect distance and expression, and took a handsome sitting posture.
With everything in place, he spoke again.
“Alright, you can look.”
The photo app opened.
The front camera entered use mode.
An image of himself appeared on the phone screen, along with the little person.
Su Mingqian, in the corner, gazing at him.
The little person looked at Li Shuoxing, and Li Shuoxing looked at the little person.
He waved his hand.
A moment later.
He made a cautious peace sign.
Favourability +50!
Su Mingqian smiled, his voice full of happiness. “Ximu, I can see you again.”
Perhaps infected by Su Mingqian’s exposed emotions, Li Shuoxing suddenly felt very happy.
He replied just as cheerfully, “Cub, I see you every day.”
After a brief conversation, Su Mingqian said to Li Shuoxing, “Alright, it’s about time. Ximu, you should start writing.”
Li Shuoxing: “…”
Su Mingqian coughed again and added, “And, can you put your phone next to you while you’re writing?”
Li Shuoxing: “…”
One second I feel like I’ve been used and thrown away. The next second I feel that since the cub still wants me to accompany him on the phone, it’s okay, the cub still loves me…
With mixed thoughts, he agreed to Su Mingqian’s request. He silently placed his phone next to the computer, opened the document and constructed the plot.
Su Mingqian exited the photo app.
He strolled back and forth on the phone screen for a while, quietly returned to the camera app, turned on the camera, took a look outside, and saw the profile of Ximu seriously typing.
Su Mingqian was suddenly satisfied and had a tangible sense that Ximu was really by his side.
Favourability silently +50 again.
Then, Su Mingqian really left the photo app. He huffed and puffed as he struggled his way to the browser, entered it, input his name and searched.
The page jumped.
The results came up, all about Nine Crossings.
Already mentally prepared, Su Mingqian wasn’t disappointed. He observed line by line…