Chapter 30#
Day Nine Countdown#
The System took the game controller Yu Lanyin handed over.
Yu Lanyin was very skilled with his wheelchair. This was a game that required two hands to operate the controller, but it didn’t faze him. With a rubber band tying a few flattened disposable chopsticks, he could smoothly control the character with one hand.
However, clearing levels still required two people.
Yu Lanyin’s living quarters were on the second floor of the shop, with poor lighting, but it was just as neatly organized.
There was nothing much left.
His luggage was packed, one large suitcase.
Yu Lanyin had bought a plane ticket, a red-eye flight three days later, on sale, cheap.
The plane would arrive at the capital airport of a neighboring country. No rush, he would stay overnight comfortably, then transfer to a train. It was a special tourist train for tourists, two days and three nights, with private compartments, food and performances on board, enjoying the scenery all the way.
Yu Lanyin’s gaming addiction was absurd, or perhaps he hadn’t played for too long. Anyway, he didn’t have to open the shop tomorrow, so he was going to play to his heart’s content as a form of revenge.
The System played with him for over ten hours.
Yu Lanyin didn’t feel tired, he was happy and focused, didn’t lose his temper, and seriously studied the guides, playing from dawn till dusk.
They reached the fifth chapter’s BOSS.
Yu Lanyin suddenly became worried and turned to ask the System: “Can you still turn back into a rolling pin?”
The travel expenses for one person were more than enough for a somewhat well-off breakfast shop owner.
Adding another person might be a different story.
In extreme circumstances, Yu Lanyin still wanted to turn the System into a rolling pin and stuff it into his suitcase.
“…”
Without Yu Lanyin’s cooperation, the System was struggling alone. It secretly invaded the data and furiously beat the BOSS: “No need.”
Accompanying the target person on a trip was a reasonable expense.
For the System, as long as the purpose was reasonable and not intercepted or rejected, money was just a few numbers in the code.
It could easily be obtained.
Yu Lanyin immediately keenly detected a loophole in the rules: “Can we upgrade to first class? Platinum five-star hotel? Luxury exclusive train compartment?”
The System took advantage of the chaos to defeat the BOSS, then silently put down the controller and looked at him.
Yu Lanyin was earnestly discussing with the System.
“Reasonable,” Yu Lanyin pressed his left hand to his upper left chest, found his theatrical recitation voice, cleared his throat, and said seriously, “It hurts here, hurts so much I’m dying.”
Yu Lanyin said, “I need to be coaxed.”
He needed to enjoy first-class, platinum five-star hotels, and luxury supreme compartments all the way to be healed and coaxed.
Yu Lanyin looked at the System with considerable anticipation.
The colors on the second-hand display were excessively vivid. The small transom window provided dim light. The colorful light shone on his face, shifting and changing, reflecting different hues.
Like countless flawless, lively masks.
After a few seconds, the System nodded, walked over, and squatted down, supporting the wheelchair.
Yu Lanyin was a “glitch,” a bug that needed to be fixed.
This was actually a world that had been rebooted. Last time, no instrument determined that Yu Lanyin needed to be redeemed, so the headquarters didn’t send a redemption system at all.
After the body was found, Song Baoxiao didn’t even believe it, not thinking for a moment that the battered deceased was Yu Lanyin—he had already believed that Yu Lanyin was indeed seriously ill, had taken him home to care for him, and they had talked through all their past. He was willing to forgive everything Yu Lanyin had done, and even put aside work to accompany Yu Lanyin on a trip to the snowy mountains to relax.
It was just that he had stayed up late that day for an urgent remote company meeting.
So he woke up late.
Yu Lanyin left a note saying the weather was nice and he was going out for a walk to get some fresh air.
…So why did Yu Lanyin commit suicide?
Why commit suicide?
Wasn’t everything finally getting better?
When it came back to its senses, the System found itself stroking Yu Lanyin’s ear.
It found it hard to control this unknown impulse, just like wanting to smash Yu Lanyin’s enthusiastically set “sandbag-sized fist” into the protagonist’s face. These were all thoughts it couldn’t understand for now.
The System asked the person in the wheelchair: “Why are you sad?”
Yu Lanyin himself couldn’t remember what he had said three seconds ago. He paused, then smiled a little awkwardly, rubbing his head: “Just kidding, not sad.”
“I want to stay in a big hotel now.”
Yu Lanyin locked the wheelchair and leaned back, swaying restlessly, his chin resting on his arm, the game controller’s strap dangling from his left index finger.
This made him look like an innocent youth unaware of the world, vaguely showing the shadow of the proud and handsome young master he once was: “I want to stay in a big hotel, I want to fly first class, I want the most expensive private compartment, I want to spend money recklessly.”
Yu Lanyin mumbled into his arm: “I used to be able to stay wherever I wanted.”
This was actually a bit unreasonable.
A bit of a cheat.
But the System didn’t know why, it just didn’t know. Looking at the figure curled up in the wheelchair, making even the wheelchair seem spacious, it instinctively reached out and picked him up: “I know, you can stay wherever you want.”
“Stay wherever you want, okay?” the System asked, looking down. “Stay in the best places, have a blast, I’ll accompany you.”
Yu Lanyin was very adaptable to his environment. When the System picked him up, he lazily hung on the System’s arm, his head drooping limply, his arms and legs swaying.
The System patiently asked several times before the person swinging like a pendulum slowly raised a hand, giving a gesture of approval.
“Are you tired?” The System calculated that Yu Lanyin had to get up at two o’clock to work. Even with his strong desire to play, he had been awake for at least twenty-something hours.
But the second floor of the breakfast shop was also cold and damp.
The System tried to suggest: “How about we go directly to a hot spring hotel today? It’s near the airport, and they also have game consoles there.”
They could continue playing the next levels.
Once they had enough, they could just take a plane. There was a green channel, so convenient.
The retired breakfast shop owner, who had “powered down” on its arm, seemed to “ding” and light up, lifting his head.
The System unconsciously smiled.
Compared to the 98-point Yu Lanyin, it preferred the current Yu Lanyin, even though the residual reform module was flashing a string of meaningless red lights like “extravagant and dissolute,” “lazy and averse to work,” and “old habits die hard.”
Song Baoxiao detested such extravagant and wasteful habits.
But what did the System’s money have to do with its protagonist?
The System booked a hot spring hotel, turned on the awning lights, tidied up the shop on the first floor, locked the door, and Song Baoxiao and Song Chen were already gone, presumably having left.
That bag of medicine was still on the table.
These were spinal nutrient medicines developed by Song Baoxiao’s department, hard to buy, and Song Baoxiao delivered them every two weeks.
Someone above said, “Useless.”
The System looked up.
Yu Lanyin was leaning on the window, his arm dangling outside, swaying in the wind: “I saw it.”
Having nothing else to do, and being incredibly sleepy that morning, Yu Lanyin kneaded dough while listening to his phone read out their company’s patent papers and phase three clinical trial reports.
The System scanned it and found that Yu Lanyin was completely right. The medicine’s efficacy was slightly better than a placebo, but limited.
Its calcium supplement effect was not as good as soy milk.
The System looked up and asked: “Wasn’t your university major in economic management?”
Yu Lanyin immediately wagged his tail: “I’m smart.”
Another red light.
The System pressed the light off, threw the bag of medicine into the trash can, looked up and smiled, then rushed up the stairs two steps at a time to the second floor to retrieve the wagging-tailed cat that was about to fall out of the window.
Yu Lanyin’s body was very cold from the night wind.
Very soft, very obedient.
He was also well-behaved when picked up, even knowing to actively raise his arms.
It seemed that he wasn’t contemplating suicide. The reason he almost fell out of the window was simply that he was attracted by the foolish moths fluttering against the window’s light and wanted to reach out and touch their white wings.
The System looked at the past fast-forward playback.
The so-called “reform” judgment was completely inaccurate.
Yu Lanyin was not “vain” or “boastful.”
Yu Lanyin’s own major was leisurely. When he was in college, to pursue a relationship, he would sneak into Song Baoxiao’s classes and experiments, accompany Song Baoxiao to review for finals, holding a book and rolling around bored, listening to Song Baoxiao recite over and over again.
Yu Lanyin went from listening to him recite with a book, to throwing the book away and listening to him recite, to his impatient nature taking over, unable to resist blurting out answers when Song Baoxiao got stuck.
To do serious scientific research was indeed not his forte.
But reading a paper with serious suspicion of fraud was certainly not a problem.
The System materialized a car. To make CEO Yu, the young boss of the Snowy Mountain Breakfast Shop, comfortable, it chose a very luxurious and expensive brand, a flamboyant red trident on a blue sea: “Satisfied?”
Yu Lanyin was actually incredibly easy to coax.
Just covering his hand over the back of his neck, rubbing it a little, squeezing it twice, and his whole body would relax.
At this moment, Young CEO Yu was clearly satisfied. He was curled up in the passenger seat, not sitting properly, letting the System buckle his seatbelt, yawning comfortably: “Ten-star review.”
The System smiled.
It reached out again and touched Yu Lanyin’s back, finding that Yu Lanyin had almost no reaction.
The sensation there had severely faded.
Yu Lanyin didn’t notice he was being touched. He was still looking out at the night scenery with fresh curiosity. He hadn’t been in a car for three years. After all, the market wasn’t far, and he took the bus to the hospital.
Then this novelty of being reacquainted slowly faded.
Yu Lanyin was truly too tired.
His eyelids drooped little by little, and sleepiness surged like a tide. When the car stopped in front of the hot spring hotel, Yu Lanyin’s head and neck were bowed, his body completely constrained by the seatbelt, and a red mark had already formed on his pale neck from the tilt.
The System reached out, wanting to support him. As soon as it got close, the person suddenly woke up with a start.
A moth under a lamp had crashed into a spiderweb.
Yu Lanyin’s eyes were wide open, looking at the System, as if he didn’t immediately recognize it, his pupils black and hollow.
Hollow to the point of numbness.
Only dead people had such eyes.
The shell was alive, still functioning, but inside it was completely dead, festering with crimson floral juice that would flow out if the outer shell was broken.
Yu Lanyin remained motionless.
The System waited, tried to support his shoulder, and asked softly: “Yu Lanyin?”
Yu Lanyin said, “I’m not going to see Song Baoxiao.”
The System realized Yu Lanyin was confused from sleep, mixing it up with the previous system. It was a little worried: “Yu Lanyin, listen to me…”
“I’m not going,” Yu Lanyin’s body was trembling. “I don’t like him anymore.”
Yu Lanyin only had one hand that could move, so he struggled wildly with that one hand, pulling the seatbelt around his neck again and again, desperately tightening it, desperately stretching it.
The System used its hand to protect his violently retching throat.
How much had Yu Lanyin eaten? And he had played games for most of the day. His stomach was empty; he couldn’t throw up anything, only his body spasmed nervously again and again.
Yu Lanyin said, “I don’t like him anymore, I don’t like him anymore, I don’t like him anymore, I…”
His voice was swallowed by his lips and teeth.
The System had no spare hands. The System had to hold Yu Lanyin’s arm, protecting his fragile, slender neck. It only had ten days to save Yu Lanyin, and time was very limited. A cursed twenty-three hours had already passed.
The two things the System most wanted to do now were to punch the protagonist and to dismantle its predecessor and send it directly into the data shredder.
But there was no time for either.
Yu Lanyin was easy to coax, incredibly easy to coax. He whimpered when kissed, became quiet, became obedient, and no longer insisted on strangling himself with the seatbelt.
“You’re not… Song Baoxiao,” Yu Lanyin slowly released his grip, asking softly, “Who?”
His pupils were still unfocused; he couldn’t see anything clearly, but Song Baoxiao was a noble and upright gentleman.
He wouldn’t do such a thing.
The System didn’t know how to answer. “Your System” wasn’t a good answer. Yu Lanyin definitely didn’t like the System at all. Yu Lanyin was almost driven to death by the System.
The System was still hesitating, but Yu Lanyin no longer wanted to know the answer.
Yu Lanyin clutched its sleeve, looking up.
Yu Lanyin mumbled, “Kiss me.”
Yu Lanyin’s fingers were cold. Although rough, his skin was also very thin from prolonged soaking, excessively thin. It would break easily with a slight carelessness, so it became exceptionally soft when cold sweat appeared.
A soft, cold, weak force tugged at its wrist.
The System had no choice but to comply.
It understood the techniques of kissing. Although it didn’t understand the meaning of such things, it didn’t prevent it from using its database. Yu Lanyin quickly ran out of oxygen, lost strength, and curled up, trembling.
Yu Lanyin clumsily stirred the System’s tongue.
The clumsiness of his technique truly indicated that Yu Lanyin had never kissed anyone before.
The System untangled the intricate, spiderweb-like seatbelt, tightened its arms, and pulled Yu Lanyin into its embrace. Yu Lanyin’s mouth had a continuous stream of cold air, and when it was gently and thoroughly swept by warmth, he would tremble violently.
Long-term overexertion, severe lack of sleep, and someone who hadn’t slept for over twenty hours would be at risk of fainting from this.
After a few minutes, Yu Lanyin lost consciousness as desired, collapsing silently.
The System picked up the cold, beautiful shell, placed its hand over the faint rise and fall of his chest, and carefully felt for a long time before finally detecting a very reluctant heartbeat.
The System looked at the large screen on the building outside the car window.
Red light reflected in, making his face appear to have an illusory layer of cold blood.
0:00.
It was the ninth day of its countdown to save Yu Lanyin.