Chapter 151 - System vs. System (I)
Chi Xiaochi is lying in bed, still cold, wrapped up in a small blanket and waiting for her orange.
There is a subtle pleasure in the sound of the juice splashing as the delicate fibre of the orange is cut open.
After hearing his story, Chi Xiaochi circled the covers and relaxed a little: “For Ding Qiuyun, that’s good.”
061 Peeling the orange peel in a twist, he responded distantly, “I’m not doing it for him. I’m doing it for you.”
…… his family’s Xiaochi is too heavy-minded and needs to be nurtured properly.
Chi Xiaochi is stunned.
061 But as if he had said a perfectly ordinary thing, he then asked, “Oranges are used for eating, and orange peels for making water. Is that okay?”
Chi Xiaochi hid half his face under the covers, “Well. Present it to me quickly.”
061 Laughs: “Yes. Your Majesty, please wait a moment, I will set a plate for you.”
Chi Xiaochi took a few breaths under the covers before bracing herself to sit up.
Dizziness after lying down for a long time.
And as soon as he braced himself for this, he sensed that something was wrong.
He pulled his right hand out of the tightly tucked quilt and found a ring on his ring finger.
The ring is a plain ring that fits his finger perfectly, perfectly, and at first glance it appears to be plain, but on closer inspection it has a very fine starburst pattern, with a silvery light diffusing through it, as if a galaxy were slowly flowing through it.
When did he put this ring on?
Chi Xiaochi was vaguely familiar with the material of the ring when he heard the subtle call once again, “Mr. Chi?”
The sound is much louder and clearer than last time.
The voice was cautious, yet a little more steady and self-possessed than the one Chi Xiaochi remembered: “Mr. Chi, are you there?”
Chi Xiaochi doesn’t make a sound either, just tries to answer in his head, “It’s me.”
The steady self-possession that he had secretly appreciated only moments before disappeared, and the trembling voice of surprise was in keeping with the man’s age, which was not yet twenty: “Mr. Ji, Mr. Ji! I’m Ji Zuoshan, do you remember me?”
Chi Xiaochi : “…… How many months have passed at your place?”
Ji Zuoshan dutifully replied, “…… Well, it’s almost four months.”
Chi Xiaochi asked again, “Do I look like I have a precursor to Alzheimer’s?”
Ji Zuoshan then understands what he means and smiles tamely with pursed lips.
Chi Xiaochi, who is used to speaking to people, had already learned a lot in the back and forth, between questions and answers.
He did a quick mental addition and subtraction.
The flow of time varies from world to world, some faster, some slower, but by and large the difference is not too great.
In comparison with the world he came from, he had spent eight months in the first and second worlds and more than seven years in Dong Ge’s world, but because he had used the beginner, intermediate and advanced time compression cards, it took only a year and two months to convert it to outside time.
He has spent more than two years on the interstellar world where Ji Zuoshan is based, and thanks to an advanced time compression card with 16x speed, he has been here for just over a month.
In Song Chunyang’s world, it takes the shortest amount of time, only 45 days, which is offset by the compression card, so that not even three days have passed in the outside world.
The post-apocalyptic world took three years and eight months, while only nearly four months had passed in the real world after the advanced compression card offset.
Adding up the fractions of holidays and the time difference between the various worlds and the real world, and calculating them individually, the forest adds up to a full two and a half years having passed in Chi Xiaochi’s original world.
…… has just been too long.
He’s probably just a weak, pathetic, helpless wheelchair-bound spirit in his current world, where a nurse could accidentally step off his oxygen tube and he’d die on the spot and go straight to his next life.
In Ding Qiuyun’s world, Chi Xiaochi once asked 061 how he managed to bring in 10 hosts in 12 years, and how he should be awarded the May Day Model Worker medal and a parade.
061 helplessly said, “They also have exchange for advanced compression cards. Moreover, they usually only swipe the good feeling value …… good feeling value is better than remorse value.”
Chi Xiaochi wondered, “That shouldn’t be so efficient.”
061 : “There are times when a situation like Zhan Yanchao’s occurs: when you first arrive in the world, the Raider object’s favorable value towards the host is full. So they will just kill themselves.”
…… Well, that’s a real energy saver.
In his own perception, however, the time he spent in person was real and could not be faked.
The name Ji Zuoshan is a memory that is almost four years old for Chi Xiaochi.
Chi Xiaochi pulled his thoughts back into focus and asked, “How did you get in touch with me?”
Ji Zuoshan: “It’s Bu Lu’s armour. Do you remember that ‘scar’ summer training? The Na Man metal that Mr Six found? Bu Lu was refurbished with Na Man metal, and Mr Six himself left some of it behind. Those Na Man metals came from the same piece of stardust and had some special induction. So ……”
Chi Xiaochi gently rubs his ring finger, his face slightly flushed, as if he has thought of something.
But soon enough, not daring to be presumptuous, he started to run the ring loose, intending to put it back in storage as soon as the off-site link with Ji Zuoshan was over.
He asked, “What do you want me for? Singing karaoke.”
Chi Xiaochi has a smile on his face and a heart like a mirror.
They have been conversing for so long since Ji Zuoshan joined them, and yet he has not called 061 by name, nor has 061 greeted him.
Apparently Ji Zuoshan had opened up a secret channel that even 061 could not detect.
Since he doesn’t mention it, Chi Xiaochi assumes that he has something private to tell himself, so there is no need to ask 061 to come and listen to it with him for the time being.
In a sense, Ji Zuoshan’s psychic power is akin to that of a god, as he was able to break through Lord GOD’s system defences, shield himself from other systems and infiltrate without a sound.
Ji Zuoshan said, “Here’s the thing. I’ve found a strange person here. It seems to be somewhat related to the system Mr. Ji works on. That’s why I purposely blocked Mr. Six to prevent being listened to by the system.”
”What people?”
Ji Zuoshan said: “A man. I bumped into him while I was shopping with Luo Qian and the girls. He said he was from another world and asked me to take him back to his old one.”
Ji Zuoshan’s description is objective and gentle enough.
It was diagnosed by doctors as a madman suffering from a moderate mental disorder.
It took Ji Zuoshan a lot of effort to get to the bottom of what happened, and to find out a lot of key information from his confusing descriptions.
He has been in “this world” for thirteen years and no longer remembers his own name, calling himself Bai Chufei at one point and Tan Hu at another.
Ji Zuoshan went to investigate and found that although there were more than 300 Tan Hu with the same name and surname on the planet, they all had exact IDs and none of them could be matched to the person in front of him.
Bai Chufei is a real person, but he has been stripped of his ID.
In other words, Bai Chufei is officially a “dead” person.
Bai Chufei is a handsome young man, even if the bearded “Tan Hu” has been cleaned up and is half white, he is still a far cry from Bai Chufei’s looks.
But Tan Hu still maintains that he should have been Bai Chufei, the dead man.
Luo Qian thinks he is really out of his mind and tells Ji Zuoshan not to spend more time on him than necessary.
But Ji Zuoshan has a problem with this unidentified madman.
He investigates Bai Chufei and learns that he comes from a good family, only a little behind Zhan Yanchao’s, and is a proud and cool Alpha.
After entering the army, Bai Chufei was imprisoned without permission by another Alpha, Zhao Jinnian, a regimental commander of the Eastern Army, and chained to a tent for forced intercourse day after day.
Later, largely unable to bear such humiliation, he chose to set himself on fire.
Tan Hu, however, said that he had to set himself on fire in order to complete his mission.
In the course of his mission, he falls hopelessly in love with the handsome and well-built Zhao Jinnian.
Love in this world is mostly arsenic for him and honey for me. For Tan Hu, who is weak and timid in the real world, he is afraid of war, and Zhao Jinnian keeps him chained to his tent so that he doesn’t have to go to war anymore; he is not good at making his own decisions, and Zhao Jinnian takes care of everything for him; he is afraid to interact with people, and Zhao Jinnian isolates him from the crowd and keeps him to himself.
In Tan Hu’s opinion, Zhao Jinnian is the perfect match.
He would not have left Zhao Jinnian if he had not been obliged to complete his mission.
When he had completed all of Zhao Jinnian’s favours and set fire to the tent with his stash of flints, he made up his mind that he would return to Zhao Jinnian when he had completed all of his tasks.
But when he completed all his tasks and it was Lord GOD’s turn to perform, his dreams were completely turned into a soap bubble.
He wears the face of Tan Hu and appears on the streets of the city as the most mediocre Beta.
…… has no ID, no source of income, no place to land, no nothing.
Bai Chufei’s illustrious family, his clothes and food, his good looks and his strength, he had none of them.
He is Tan Hu, a man who should not exist in this world at all.
He went looking for Zhao Jinnian, claiming to be Bai Chufei, but nearly got shot by the guards and had to crouch by the side of the road, begging for food from the bins, shivering in the cold, waiting for Zhao Jinnian to come out of the barracks so he could rush up and identify him.
He had so many good memories with him, he should have loved his own soul and would never have left him behind.
His hallucinatory dream came to an abrupt end when, hungry and dizzy, he saw Zhao Jinnian’s car drive out of the barracks gates.
The right seat at the back, which had been reserved for him, was occupied by a man who looked like Bai Chufei.
Zhao Jinnian was afraid that he would get seasick, so she rolled down the window, put one arm around his shoulders, peeled a milk candy and stuffed it into his mouth, pressed it to his ear and whispered words of love, making the good-looking man laugh.
Tan Hu is completely desperate.
He called out to Lord God again and again, begging him to let him go back, even if he had to do ten more missions, he didn’t want to stay in a place where no one knew him.
He repented and screamed, but Lord GOD ignored him no more.
At the time of signing the contract, Lord God made it clear that he would only fulfil one wish for one person.
After realising he could never go back, Tan Hu tried to kill himself, but after picking up a razor blade and scratching it on his wrist for a few days, his legs gave out and he fell to the ground, clutching his knees and bawling.
He was afraid, he didn’t want to die.
Tan Hu was afraid to live, but not to die, so he gritted his teeth and stayed in this world, surviving for thirteen years, scavenging with fear and trepidation in a world that revered force.
Over time, he went mad, hiding in his little world, chanting his prayers to countless passers-by: “Take me away, take me back, I don’t want to stay here ……”
After ten long years of praying, only one person heard his prayers and brought him to a place where he could be sheltered and given food and clothing. But his mind was already foggy and he spent his days in a daze, eating and drinking and mumbling to the walls.
He can no longer tell if he is Bai Chufei or Tan Hu.
Despite all the suspicions, Chi Xiaochi’s body chilled when the bloody truth was laid bare before him.
He pulled the covers tighter around him, trying to get more information, “Did he say anything else? Like, which system is his?”
Ji Zuoshan replied, “He said it was ‘127’. He kept pleading with me to get in touch with his system and ask him to help plead with Lord GOD. But he also mentioned that he was the last host that 127 had taken. Anyway, he wasn’t sure if 127 was still working inside the system.”
No. 127, 13 years ago, last host ……
Chi Xiaochi has never heard Mr Six talk about this system.
Either they were ordinary colleagues, or they stepped down long before Mr Six took up his post, I believe.
Chi Xiaochi deliberated for a moment, intending to ask more detailed questions, so that he could ask the more qualified system via 061 for information when he found the opportunity: “What does 127 look like? Has he seen it? Can you ask him to describe it?”
Ji Zuoshan is also attentive, having asked the madman countless questions in advance, and he now has almost all the relevant information he can get.
He picks up his recorder, which is full of Tan Hu’s fragmented, east-to-west descriptions.
It took him a lot of effort to sort out a rough idea of what to expect from those voice wen files.
Ji Zuoshan held the recorder and read out what was summarized on it: “No. 127 was very young, had just entered university at the time of his death, a Wen student, wore a pair of glasses, his appearance was on the clean side, and he had long hands and feet. 127 was very dedicated in taking him, had a lively personality, and sometimes loved to talk to him about some flirty things. …… By the way, he was very fond of food.”
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