Li Shuoxing studied how to implement the system prompt.
Of course, the most ideal option would be to take the cub into his arms, but there was a big gap between that ideal option and the objective reality.
Li Shuoxing changed his mind. If he couldn’t take the cub into his arms, he might as well occupy the largest area possible on the cub.
So, he opened his arms and lay down on Su Mingqian’s chest with his limbs spread out.
He could feel his body gently vibrating during the whole process. That was caused by the tremors from Su Mingqian’s uncontrollable, stifled laughter.
Li Shuoxing held that position for a minute, and then gave up.
This position was too tiring. He had already slid uncontrollably from Su Mingqian’s chest all the way to Su Mingqian’s thighs.
That seemed just right. Li Shuoxing stood on top of Su Mingqian’s thigh and tried to wrap his arms around Su Mingqian’s waist. Unfortunately, he was still unsuccessful. The doll’s small body couldn’t do anything.
So, how should he realise the proposition of “embrace your lover tightly”?
Li Shuoxing looked up at Su Mingqian.
He was deep in thought.
***
A video communication connected within the game.
The two sides met formally.
Li Shuoxing and Su Mingqian saw two foreigners: one old and one middle-aged, both with blond hair and blue eyes.
John and George saw a chibi character and a doll.
The chibi character was sitting on the couch, looking rather solemn, which was natural. But a doll sat on his shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around his neck, watching them warily…
This unique way of meeting across dimensions made both sides silent.
Then, John broke the short silence with his voice. “Simon, it’s good to finally see you again. I’m relieved to see you’re in good spirits.” His eyes turned to the doll. “Are you Li Shuoxing? Nice to meet you. I’ve been waiting for your call for a while. I thought that you’d call me half an hour ago.”
Li Shuoxing had received the access device half an hour ago.
The US phone number printed on the access device revealed a lot.
Li Shuoxing did feel something was wrong the moment he saw the phone number, but he still chose to enter the game first. He called Su Mingqian by his first name. “Simon is the most important. Nothing else is a big problem. But I do have a question I’d like to ask you.”
Li Shuoxing pondered, “Your lab produced the Love Bar app, right? It cheats Krypton really well. Which lab technician planned it? Tell me, I promise—”
He trailed off and paused deliberately to draw everyone’s attention to himself, then said:
“Send him a banner to thank him for his participation in the game’s production.”
Love Bar is really cheating Krypton, but compared to the cub, is Krypton a problem?
Of course not.
Although Li Shuoxing cursed the game daily for cheating Krypton, he was sincere in sending the banner.
John smiled. “Lab technicians weren’t the ones who did the planning. It’s Ask.”
Li Shuoxing: “…Ask?”
George interjected, “Ask secretly created Love Bar’s entire program. If you hadn’t mentioned Ask in your email last time, I wouldn’t have known that Ask had secretly taken Simon to your place. We originally had a safer place in mind for Simon. But… Ask did the right thing. Simon is now recovering well.”
Li Shuoxing sorted this information out. “Simon’s appearance in my phone isn’t a coincidence, nor your plan, but the work of Ask, a superintelligence? And this Love Bar app, it’s also produced and handled by Ask?”
George: “That’s right.”
Li Shuoxing said with confusion, “Why would it do this?”
George shrugged. “Who knows? Superintelligence always knows more than humans do.”
Li Shuoxing couldn’t refute that.
He looked downwards, thinking for a moment, and found that his question had been basically explained.
Now, there was only the last, most important thing left to do.
He turned to look at the silent Su Mingqian.
Su Mingqian listened attentively and didn’t make any casual comments. He faced them all calmly, no matter if it was his former colleagues, who had appeared in front of him, or Ask.
The cub is exactly the same as usual.
Would the system give a prompt like that?
Li Shuoxing thought inwardly. He faced the two people. “I have one last question. Why exactly did Simon become like this? Is he sick?”
The dialogue experienced its first brief pause.
After the pause, John looked at Su Mingqian. “Simon, according to your medical report and the data from Ask, we found that your condition improved significantly when you remembered something in your past on your own. So, for the sake of your smooth recovery, I’m afraid we can’t tell you about this for the time being. We suspect that this may be the key to your awakening… I really hope that you can remember everything soon and come back to us. We need you, and Ask needs you.”
Their short and direct conversation was basically over.
When they were saying goodbye, John told Li Shuoxing to keep Ask’s existence confidential and to follow Ask’s instructions. While George said goodbye to Su Mingqian, he said, “I have a small gift for you. I expect you will receive it in the next two days. I hope you’ll like it.”
Then, the video cut off, and the call came to an end.
Li Shuoxing asked Su Mingqian, “Mingqian, how do you feel? Any discomfort?”
Su Mingqian shook his head. “No. I don’t feel anything.”
Su Mingqian really didn’t feel anything.
But, when he fell asleep that night, he suddenly had a nightmare.
The sky was dark and gloomy outside his window. The wind blowing across the courtyard made a soft clicking sound, like the footsteps of an approaching storm.
Su Mingqian, who was lying in bed, had restless sleep.
A light mist hung over his head, and words were displayed inside it.
Dreaming (5/5)
It was unknown what he was dreaming in his final dream. His brow furrowed, his forehead began sweating, and beads of sweat rolled down on the pillow one after another, soon dampening a small part of the pillow…
“Buzz—”
“Buzz buzz buzz—”
The sudden vibration of his phone woke Li Shuoxing up.
“Which idiot is it, calling in the middle of the night…”
Li Shuoxing closed his eyes and muttered a curse. He reached out to the familiar place, held the vibrating phone, and then lifted a single eyelid, squinted, and looked at it.
A phone number wasn’t on the bright screen that was in the dark, just a line of text.
[System: Your lover’s mood is very unstable. Please enter the game immediately to reassure your lover.]
Li Shuoxing was startled. All the sleeping bugs in his head were instantly scared to death.
He rolled over and sat up. As he got out of bed, he opened the game, and saw that the cub, who had been fine all day, seemed to be having a nightmare. He was struggling with his eyes closed in bed; and if he listened carefully, he seemed to hear a cry for help…
Li Shuoxing: “Cub? Cub?”
He called out twice, but the person who was dreaming didn’t hear him, still haunted by the dream.
Li Shuoxing saw the dreaming prompt on top of Su Mingqian’s head. He then asked the system, “Can you stop the dreaming?”
Text appeared on the screen.
[System: No.]
Li Shuoxing didn’t see this line of text.
He had rushed to the access device in his home, sat on it, quickly put on the helmet, and entered the game from reality again.
When he reappeared in the game with Xingxing’s body, Li Shuoxing was no longer as rusty as he had been the first time.
He expertly jumped off the table, ran all the way to the bedroom, and then tried to climb into Su Mingqian’s bed, slipping down twice, but finally managing to reach his destination.
Li Shuoxing threw himself next to the pillow, gently pushed Su Mingqian, and called out, “Cub? Cub? Wake up, it’s me. Open your eyes and look at me—”
But the sound didn’t seem to be much help to Su Mingqian.
Su Mingqian’s forehead was still sweating profusely. Li Shuoxing’s whole hand got wet with just one touch to his forehead.
Li Shuoxing was a little anxious and wanted to find a cloth to wipe Su Mingqian’s forehead. But, the bathroom, which would normally be two or three steps away, was now so hopelessly far… He gave up on the idea of finding a towel. He unbuttoned his jacket, took off his clean shirt, and used it as a towel to wipe Su Mingqian’s forehead and neck.
Wiping was a challenge for the little person as well.
He had to stand next to Su Mingqian’s ear and stretch his body as far as he could to wipe from left to right. He lost his footing several times and almost fell on top of Su Mingqian. Fortunately, each time this happened, he was able to use his strength to stabilise himself in time and didn’t really fall down.
It was just that he used his waist too many times and it was a little twisted. When he finally finished wiping off the sweat, his small waist was throbbing with pain.
Li Shuoxing rubbed his waist. After seeing that Su Mingqian wasn’t sweating too much, he immediately threw away his shirt, stomped over to the other’s arm, grabbed the blanket covering Su Mingqian with both his hands, and pulled the heavy blanket down bit by bit with all his strength.
He freed Su Mingqian’s chest from under the blanket, then climbed back up, placed his small hands on the other’s chest, and gently pressed and rubbed it to help soothe him.
After a series of actions, Su Mingqian, who had been struggling very hard, was gradually calmed down.
He was no longer sweating and panting violently, and his rapidly rotating eyeballs under his eyelids slowly calmed.
He seemed to have broken free from his nightmare and was slowly falling into a deeper slumber.
Li Shuoxing had also used up all his strength. He collapsed on the bed with his limbs spread out, gasping for breath.
As he lay flat on his back, he could see the light floating in the air.
The luminescence in the night was like a flame on the shore: shimmering quietly, burning silently.
Li Shuoxing watched it for a while, and finally regained some strength. He climbed back up, lowered his body, held Su Mingqian’s hand, placed Su Mingqian’s hand on his body, and then lay down to sleep with Su Mingqian.
He whispered:
“Don’t be afraid, cub. You’re holding me. I’m right beside you. I’ll be with you, no matter what happens.”
The light flickered in the night for an indeterminate amount of time before finally fading away.
A few moments after it faded away, Li Shuoxing, who was sleeping with Su Mingqian, raised his body and took a glance at Su Mingqian.
The other was asleep.
Li Shuoxing gently got up from the bed, slid off, and walked out of the bedroom.
He began to speak, addressing the system, “Ask, I know you can hear me and understand what I’m saying. How about you consider making a normal body for me? You see, the doll’s body is usually fine, but when something happens, it’s so bad that I can’t even hold the cub in my arms. What if the cub struggled a bit more today and fell off the bed? You don’t want to see that happen, do you?”
The silvery-white chat box popped up, but there wasn’t any text on it.
It seemed that the system was still considering Li Shuoxing’s suggestion, so it didn’t directly answer.
Li Shuoxing continued to persuade it. “I understand your difficulties. It’s not easy for you to work hard on the coding, but think of the cub, think of the person who made you. Shouldn’t you try everything to provide the best conditions for him?”
[System: …takes time.]
Li Shuoxing was satisfied that the system had finally said a word to him. He accepted it as it was and didn’t ask too much of the system at once. Instead, he moved on to the lounge and laboriously took down the flashing travel log from the bookshelf, then opened it up.
He wanted to see exactly what kind of nightmare Su Mingqian was having.
The pages flipped open and Li Shuoxing froze.
He didn’t see any bloody and horrible images. Instead, he saw a peaceful photo of a small desert town.
And a few words belonging to Su Mingqian.
“The testing has begun. I believe Ask can handle everything. I can take a little vacation here.”
Whether it was from the photo or the words, the cub was very relaxed.
It was totally different from the way he had acted in the dream just now.
What is the cub nervous and afraid of?
Is what he’s afraid of related to this peaceful town?
Li Shuoxing hesitated for a moment, then spoke again, “Ask, you want money, don’t you? How about we have a simple transaction? The truth of this matter concerns the cub’s recovery. You can’t tell him, but you can tell me. Tell me the reason why Mingqian has become the way he is, and I’ll give you money. You can set the price.”
The silvery-white light screen flashed, and a line of cold words appeared on it.