Xie Fan genuinely didn’t think there was anything wrong with letting the system have a sip of milk tea. After all, in his mind, a “system” wasn’t a person. It was merely a mass of energy and code.
Its current appearance as “Sun Zhou” was nothing more than something akin to a projected image.
He raised the cup and felt his wrist beginning to ache slightly.
Just as he wondered whether the system couldn’t drink it after all—
He remembered that in some settings, even though systems were made of code, they could still absorb energy remotely, couldn’t they?
The next second, the figure opposite him lowered its head and took a sip directly from his hand.
When Sun Zhou lowered his head, Xie Fan glanced down and saw that, sure enough, the other party had no shadow. He was nothing more than an illusory figure.
His mind went faintly hazy for a moment.
This should have served as evidence supporting his theory that the system was merely a projection, but for some reason, Xie Fan vaguely felt that there was something indescribably strange about it.
He didn’t know how long had passed before cold fingers settled over his wrist.
Xie Fan came back to his senses and saw the system raise its head.
“All done.”
“Thank you.”
The smiling young man seemed thoughtful as he offered an evaluation, “Very sweet.”
But sweetness could make humans feel happy.
The deity scrutinized Xie Fan’s eyes, catching a barely perceptible trace of confusion in his slightly downcast gaze.
Hm?
His attention diverted, Xie Fan did find the touch of the system’s projection against his wrist a little cold, but he didn’t think much of it.
“Taro milk tea is supposed to be really sweet.”
“If you’re not drinking any more, I’m finishing it.”
He instinctively withdrew his hand.
The young man opposite him half-closed his eyes in satisfaction, looking rather like a cat. Except before, he had been a lethargic, wary cat that startled at the slightest thing, while now he was... a relaxed, somewhat bolder cat.
The sun outside quickly rose higher.
Xie Fan suddenly remembered something and abruptly reacted.
“Wait, you exchanged all your remaining energy for milk tea. Doesn’t that mean you can’t maintain your projection again?”
“Mm.”
“I’m about to disappear.”
The “Sun Zhou” opposite him turned his head to answer, seemingly a little regretful as well.
“See you tonight.”
The illusory figure before him gradually faded away, little by little, until he disappeared completely.
Xie Fan felt disappointed for a moment as he stared at the empty space opposite him, but he slowly cheered himself up again.
It was fine. The system had only disappeared because it was low on energy. It wasn’t as though it would never appear again.
At least he could now consider himself someone with a cheat ability. Maybe he didn’t have to be quite so scared anymore?
Truthfully, if some stroke of incredible luck had suddenly dropped an omnipotent system from the heavens and bound it to him, that would have seemed strange instead. A damaged system like this one, constantly short on energy, actually made him lower his guard.
Xie Fan’s brows relaxed. After finishing his milk tea, he washed the cup and stretched.
……
He Cheng had been disturbed so badly that he hadn’t slept properly all night.
Every time he closed his eyes, there were chaotic footsteps, along with voices from who knew whom.
The intermittent sounds were muffled and indistinct. Most irritating of all, whenever he tried to wake up, he couldn’t.
Normally, if the noise became unbearable, He Cheng could at least get up and see which damn bastard was causing trouble. But this time, it was as though he had been trapped in a nightmare. No matter what he did, he couldn’t wake up. He could only lie there, forced to listen in mounting irritation until, after an unknown amount of time, he finally lost consciousness.
It wasn’t until he woke up the next morning that the nightmarish sensation finally faded.
“What happened?”
“You didn’t sleep well either?”
When Tan Qingxian came downstairs and saw the dark circles beneath He Cheng’s eyes, as though he had spent the entire night wide awake, he couldn’t help teasing him.
He Cheng: ……
“Quit gloating.”
He shot back at him, then came downstairs and frowned irritably when he saw Shen Xun.
“The soundproofing in this wooden building is fucking awful. I heard people talking outside last night. They were so noisy I couldn’t sleep all night.”
“Tsk. I’m definitely going to ask that village chief today what the hell they’re doing in the middle of the night.”
The moment He Cheng finished speaking, he noticed that everyone else’s expressions had turned strange.
“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?”
He had assumed everyone else must have heard it too. After all, the commotion definitely hadn’t been quiet.
Yet Pei Jing, sitting opposite him, shook his head.
“I didn’t hear anything.”
Even Shen Xun hesitated for a moment before looking at him with concern.
“Were you maybe a little too tense? It was actually pretty quiet last night.”
Shen Xun’s room was right next to He Cheng’s, and it was even closer to the outside. If there had been any noise, there was no way he wouldn’t have noticed it.
Yet he genuinely hadn’t heard anything.
With so many people insisting that there hadn’t been any noise, even He Cheng began doubting himself.
Had he really been hearing things?
The corner of He Cheng’s mouth twitched.
This place was seriously fucking cursed for him!
After casually taking a couple of bites, he set down his chopsticks, turned his head, and asked with a disgusted expression, “Why have you been eating grass every day these past two days?”
Pei Jing and Tan Qingxian couldn’t stomach the wild vegetables and had switched back to insect rice this morning. Shen Xun was the only one still eating the wild vegetables they had picked yesterday.
“We already picked so much. It’d be a shame to waste it.”
Shen Xun smiled. Only after finishing the remaining mustard greens did he say, “Let’s walk around today.”
“I heard the villagers are going to dry apricots today.”
That sort of thing was quite common in the countryside. Apricots that couldn’t all be eaten and wouldn’t keep for long would be laid out under the sun on clear days and dried into fruit.
He Cheng snorted.
“This village finally looks a little like a normal village.”
He had almost started thinking these people genuinely ate nothing but that joyless, desireless crap every day.
Although He Cheng didn’t like cloyingly sweet dried fruit, he didn’t want to stay inside the guesthouse either.
He didn’t know whether it was because of last night’s nightmare, but ever since getting up that morning, merely staying inside the building made him uncomfortable.
After getting ready, the group headed outside.
Sure enough, they hadn’t gone far before they saw villagers not far from the village chief’s house carrying out bamboo mats to dry apricots.
Several villagers silently carried large baskets of apricots and sat beneath a tree removing the pits.
“Speaking of which, I haven’t seen any apricot trees. Where did they get all these apricots?” He Cheng asked in confusion.
“Probably from trees around the village.”
Tan Qingxian glanced around.
“There’s no way the surrounding area is only as large as what we’ve seen. It’s just that…”
The village chief wouldn’t allow them to leave the vicinity of the village and go farther up the mountain to look.
He didn’t finish the sentence, but everyone understood.
Pei Jing stopped beside one of the bamboo mats, walked over, and bought a few.
“Wouldn’t have guessed you liked these,” Shen Xun said in surprise.
Pei Jing looked exactly like the cold-faced, cool type. Shen Xun had assumed someone like him wouldn’t like sweets.
“I want to see if there’s anything different about the apricots growing on this mountain.”
Pei Jing didn’t eat them. He simply put them away.
Only then did Shen Xun understand.
That made more sense.
As they walked along, the sight of every household drying apricots instinctively made them relax. It even gave the village a tranquil, peaceful feeling, as though time itself had slowed.
Even the air was filled with the fresh fragrance of apricots.
He Cheng split one open, tossed it into his mouth, then casually glanced ahead.
“Wait. Isn’t that A-Qi up ahead?”
A familiar figure was standing in a rice paddy not far away.
He Cheng was somewhat surprised. He hadn’t expected to run into A-Qi here. That guy was always appearing and disappearing like a ghost. Why was he out here in broad daylight today?
Several hundred meters away, A-Qi had his head lowered, doing something they couldn’t make out. From this distance, the group could only see his back.
Seemingly noticing them, A-Qi raised his head and glanced over.
Without saying anything, he walked away.
He Cheng: ……
Forget it.
“But has A-Qi’s limp gotten worse?”
“Why does it feel like he’s walking a little stiffly today?”
He had noticed something slightly strange.
Tan Qingxian raised a brow, equally puzzled.
Even from such a distance, they had clearly been able to see the stiffness in A-Qi’s gait.
“Maybe the injury to his leg never fully healed and acts up from time to time.”
After a brief pause, he continued, “This is the mountains, not a major city where he can go to a hospital for a thorough examination. Whatever’s wrong with that man’s leg might never have healed completely.”
There really was something wrong with A-Qi’s leg today.
His leg felt stiff and heavy, making every step unusually difficult. For one fleeting instant, he had the strange sensation that he was dragging a piece of wood behind him as he walked.
The bizarre sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come.
A-Qi failed to notice that while he was thinking, his eyes had become completely motionless.
And he didn’t know whether it was merely his imagination, but A-Qi felt as though he had lost a stretch of his memory.
The morning of the third day of the month……
Had he really gone to patrol the back mountain?
Then why weren’t there any of the markers he should have left behind?
A-Qi hadn’t paid much attention the previous few times. But when he returned from the mountain this morning, he suddenly discovered that the last time he had supposedly gone up there, he hadn’t reinforced the fence.
So what exactly had he done that day?
His thoughts became stiff and sluggish, like a marionette whose strings had caught.
Only when A-Qi reached the entrance to the village chief’s house did he seem to come back to himself. His eyes moved again, and a rare trace of struggle suddenly flickered across his habitually expressionless face.
……
The fragrance of apricots permeating the village grew stronger and stronger.
Even Xie Fan, who hadn’t gone outside, could smell it.
He had just pushed open the window when Zhang Hai, returning with a wooden bucket in hand, stopped and looked up, greeting him with a smile.
“Oh, it’s A-Xie.”
“I picked some apricots. Want some?”
Psychologically, Xie Fan felt that he should refuse Zhang Hai. After all, he had personally witnessed the man “lose control” that day and completely turn into wood.
Yet for some inexplicable reason, a thought in his mind was telling him:
Blend in with them.
The system would protect him……
His mind inexplicably went hazy for a moment.
By the time Xie Fan came back to himself, he had already walked outside.
Just like an ordinary villager, he traded for some apricots.
When he felt that something wasn’t right, he immediately convinced himself that he simply didn’t want the villagers noticing anything unusual about him.
The system was low on energy right now. They should keep their heads down and pretend to be locals.
Under the other man’s smiling gaze, Xie Fan handed over his remaining mushrooms and accepted the apricots.
It was an entire basketful of honey apricots. Before handing them to him, Zhang Hai had even specifically transferred them into a clean bamboo basket lined with checkered cloth.
A little surprised, Xie Fan thanked him and carried the heavy basket home.
Once he came back to his senses, he couldn’t help worrying.
What was he supposed to do with this many apricots if he couldn’t finish them?
The thought had barely arisen when a voice suddenly sounded beside his ear.
“If you can’t finish them…… how about making jam?”
“Apricot jam.”
“System?”
Xie Fan abruptly turned around.
Was it already dark?
He stared outside the window in confusion.
Sure enough, the sky was already gradually dimming, and a candle had been lit next door.
“You’ve recovered some energy?”
“Mm. Barely enough.”
“Sun Zhou” smiled and walked over, taking the things from his hands.
“Apricots from the mountains are delicious.”
Xie Fan looked puzzled.
“How do you know?”
“Sun Zhou’s” expression remained unchanged.
“I guessed.”
Xie Fan: ……
He had thought the system had eaten them before.
But wait.
Why would he…… think that?
His memories went faintly hazy for an instant, and Xie Fan couldn’t help shaking his head.
“Making jam is such a pain.”
He would have to split open all the apricots and remove the pits, then light a fire and simmer them for ages. For someone as impatient as him, just thinking about it was annoying.
“Sun Zhou” chuckled softly, quietly watching his expression.
“I can try.”
Huh?
Was the system really that capable?
Xie Fan was surprised for a moment.
For some inexplicable reason, it gave him the feeling of being back at his childhood home in the countryside.
Still, he felt too embarrassed to actually make the system do everything alone. So he dawdled over to the table, sat down, and picked up an apricot.
Xie Fan had only meant to taste one.
He swore!
But these apricots were just way too delicious.
The sweet-and-sour flavor immediately made him forget that he had originally intended to help, and he ate several in a row.
By the time he came back to his senses, he realized that he had been “helping” from exactly the same spot the entire time.
Help, this is so embarrassing!
Xie Fan: ……
Damn mouth. Why are you so fucking greedy every single day?
Feeling more and more as though he were bullying his poor system, Xie Fan immediately tried to salvage his dignity by changing the subject.
“By the way, when you disappear because you don’t have enough energy, where do you usually go?”
“Are you inside my head?”
Based on Xie Fan’s many years of reading experience, systems generally resided inside their hosts’ minds, so he asked the question without the slightest wariness.
“Sun Zhou,” who was splitting open an apricot, glanced at him.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
“That’s right.”
“I’m inside your head.”
He paused, his tone somehow indescribable.
“I’m always there——keeping you company.”