Chapter 112: The Truth After Formatting
Inside the dimly lit bar, the boy sat at the counter, sipping fruit juice in small mouthfuls.
He had a baby face, like a college student who had not yet graduated—cute, pure, and radiating youthful energy, drawing many eyes around him.
A handsome man with decent looks came over with a glass of wine and tried to strike up a conversation. “Want a drink?”
The boy shook his head and said nothing. He did not even look at the man, only kept his head down and drank his juice.
The handsome man could only leave awkwardly.
“What’s with you?”
A friend walked over and sat down beside Ling Ling. “You come to a bar, but you don’t drink, and you’re not looking to hook up. Then what are you even here for?”
They had only ever been drinking buddies. Lately, Ling Ling had stopped coming out, and the friend had nearly panicked, afraid of losing his convenient little patsy who always picked up the bill.
Luckily, one phone call had brought him out again today.
But he had discovered that the patsy was no longer quite the same as before.
“I’m never drinking again.”
Ling Ling stared at his juice and said seriously to his friend, “You should drink less too. Alcohol is not a good thing.”
He had drunk twice and gotten drunk twice.
Then, both times, he had slept with Senior without even really knowing what he was doing…
Ling Ling covered his face.
Even as a system, he knew that kind of behavior was scummy.
Taking advantage of someone while drunk…
The friend looked around and noticed many pairs of glowing, hungry eyes darting toward Ling Ling. He gave him a shove. “Hey, have some self-awareness, okay? Looking that tempting, you shouldn’t sit out here. You’re way too conspicuous. If you’re not drinking, people are just going to keep coming over to hit on you.”
Ling Ling touched his own face and thought—
That was true. Scumbags usually did have attractive faces.
Next time he entered another small world, he was going to ask the Main Brain to make him uglier.
“Come on, come on, let’s go to a private room.”
His friend pushed him along.
Ling Ling’s mind was a complete mess, and he followed along in a daze.
The private room was even darker than the main bar area.
The moment they stepped inside, Ling Ling’s vision went black.
He fumbled around until he found the light switch and pressed it.
Click—
The lights came on.
He saw the friend walking ahead of him suddenly twist back in an incredibly unnatural posture, like something straight out of a horror film.
The little system, who had always been afraid of ghosts: “Aaaaahhh—”
“Stop screaming! It’s me!”
The friend was clearly speaking, but his mouth didn’t move at all.
That only made it even creepier.
Ling Ling: “Aaaahhhhhh————”
The friend had no choice but to step forward and cover his mouth. “Shut up! Look carefully!”
Ling Ling blinked. “You’re… System 2222?”
The “friend” let go of him and sat down on the sofa to the side. “Yeah. We’re both colleagues from the cannon-fodder department. I thought you’d recognized me a long time ago.”
Ling Ling looked surprised. “Are you in the middle of a mission?”
“Of course.”
System 2222 spread his hands. “Isn’t that obvious? This friend of yours is my host. With a personality like his, he’s obviously cannon-fodder. Pretty clear, right?”
“…”
Ling Ling fell silent for a moment, then suddenly remembered something important. “But you still can’t casually take control of his body!”
That kind of technique was too dangerous.
It was only supposed to be used when the host tried to alter the plot.
And even then, it could very easily cause irreversible damage to the host’s body and memories.
At any rate, he would absolutely never use it.
“Who else can I blame? You can only blame yourself.”
System 2222 looked disgusted. “If you weren’t so dense and kept failing to recognize me, would I have needed to go through all this trouble?”
As he spoke, System 2222 poured himself a glass of wine and leaned against the sofa, sipping slowly.
“Still, being human feels pretty nice.”
He smiled smugly and looked at Ling Ling. “And you’re criticizing me? That body of yours was stolen from your host too, wasn’t it?”
Ling Ling shook his head. “No. This body is mine. I’m on vacation.”
System 2222’s expression changed to one of surprise. “The Main Brain actually allowed you to go on vacation in human form?!”
Ling Ling blinked. “Yeah. Is that strange?”
“That’s practically impossible!”
System 2222’s face was full of envy. “Even if a system redeems a vacation-world reward, it usually has to take on some other form, because appearing in human form can easily disrupt the plot of the current small world.”
Ling Ling scratched his head. “I see…”
He was only an intern system, so he had no idea redeeming rewards involved so many details.
At the time, when he said he wanted to become human, the Main Brain had agreed without hesitation.
Maybe the Main Brain had been in a really good mood that day.
“Tch. So this is the legendary preferential treatment for rookies?”
System 2222’s tone was sour. “Old systems like us never got to enjoy anything like that.”
His eyes rolled once, and suddenly he asked, “That day, wasn’t there a man who took you away? You two did it, didn’t you?”
“You saw that?”
Ling Ling stared at him in disbelief. “Then why didn’t you help me? I’d been drugged!”
System 2222 laughed. “Help with what? You’re not human. So what if you slept with someone? Didn’t it at least give you a new experience? That man was excellent. And you enjoyed it too, didn’t you?”
Ling Ling pressed his lips together and said nothing, his face heating up a little.
Senior was… indeed very good…
“I’m warning you—don’t take it seriously.”
System 2222 made a slicing gesture across his chest. “Actually falling in love? Absolutely not. Systems are not allowed to date humans.”
Ling Ling swallowed nervously, his voice tiny. “…We’re not dating.”
He denied the dating part, but not the part about sleeping together.
System 2222 had successfully tricked the truth out of him. “So you really did sleep together!”
Ling Ling: “…”
Although they weren’t officially dating, he did seem to remember drunkenly saying things like I want to marry Senior and other strange nonsense.
This was exactly why alcohol was bad!
It caused nothing but trouble!!!
Ling Ling asked cautiously, “What would happen if a system did fall in love?”
System 2222 made a throat-cutting gesture.
Ling Ling: “!!!”
“You’re still an intern, so it’s normal that you don’t know.”
System 2222 slowly sipped his wine as he spoke. “The Main Brain is hunting systems across all worlds.”
Ling Ling: “What?!”
He had always thought the Main Brain was the administrator of all systems. When he had met it, he had even thought it seemed rather gentle. He’d never imagined…
“It is an administrator.”
System 2222 said coldly, “But it’s also responsible for extermination.”
“For example, if a system doesn’t follow the rules and causes the plot to go out of alignment, the Main Brain’s job is to erase it directly.”
Ling Ling shivered on the spot. “T-then what does that have to do with falling in love?”
System 2222 shot him a mocking glance. “Do you only know how to think about love?”
“…”
Ling Ling was left speechless.
System 2222 let out a cold laugh. “As systems, we’re supposed to remain fair and objective, without emotions. If you fall in love with a human, then emotions naturally appear. How can you still stay objective then?”
Ling Ling struggled weakly. “But the rules never said that…”
System 2222 crushed that hope immediately. “Not every rule gets written down.”
“Wait.”
System 2222 suddenly narrowed his eyes. “Could it be that you and that man already…”
“No!”
Ling Ling denied it at once.
System 2222 smiled. “Good. It’d better not be true. Otherwise, not only would you be erased—he wouldn’t survive either.”
“Ah, almost forgot to tell you.”
“After the Main Brain erases a system that violated the rules, it also removes the humans connected to it, in order to preserve the stability of the small world’s order.”
“…”
Ling Ling felt his chest tighten, and a cold sweat broke out across his back.
He had said he liked Senior.
But Senior had never said he liked him.
That probably didn’t count…
That didn’t count as dating… right…
He sat there stiffly, as if nailed in place. At that moment, the phone in his pocket buzzed.
Ling Ling pulled it out stiffly.
When he saw the contact name “Senior” on the screen, his eyes lit up for one brief moment, and his finger instinctively moved toward the green answer button.
But almost immediately, his eyes darkened again.
Just as he was about to press it, his finger slid over to the red button— and rejected the call.
On the other end, Shen Si frowned as he looked at the rejected call.
The little thing had obviously been avoiding him lately.
At first, he had assumed the little system was just shy, that after a couple of awkward days he would go right back to running after him and calling, “Senior, Senior.”
But he had never expected it to progress to outright rejecting his calls!
Why?
Had he hurt him that day?
Impossible…
He had chosen this body for the little system himself. Its recovery ability and flexibility were exceptional. You could even say it was gifted.
In fact, its sensitivity to pleasure was stronger than that of the average person.
That had been one of Shen Si’s own private wishes.
He couldn’t bear to see the little system cry from pain beneath him—but cry from pleasure, that he very much welcomed.
So surely it couldn’t be…
that it had been too pleasurable, so he had gone off to find someone else?!
Unable to get hold of him, Shen Si grew more and more agitated the more he thought about it. Even his long-absent headache began returning.
A man who never sent messages began typing furiously—
“Why didn’t you answer?”
“Where are you?”
“Send me your location. I’ll come get you.”
“Damn it. You slept with me and now you don’t want to take responsibility???”
…
A barrage of questions.
The further it went, the more his tone began to sound like some poor fool who had been played by a scumbag.
Looking at all the messages popping up one after another, Ling Ling felt more and more guilty.
And his heart hurt in sharp little twinges.
He wanted to reply, wanted to talk to Senior.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t drag Senior down with him.
He himself was just a useless intern system without any real body to begin with, so even if the Main Brain erased him, it didn’t matter. But Senior was so outstanding, so good, so kind—
absolutely not…
He absolutely could not let Senior be killed by the Main Brain just because he fell in love with him!
Ling Ling steeled himself and turned the phone off.
It never made another notification sound again.
Feeling low, Ling Ling had no mood to stay at the bar any longer. “I’m going back.”
“Is that so?”
System 2222 tossed the bill onto him. “Go pay it. You’ve got plenty of money, right? Helping a friend is the natural thing to do, isn’t it?”
Ling Ling: “…”
Watching the little system leave with his head lowered in dejection, System 2222 sneered. “And you still say you’re not in love. Hah.”
—
Ling Ling had nowhere to go by himself.
If he went back to the Ling house, Senior would find him there. Going to the office was even worse. Those drinking buddies were meaningless. The only person he could go to was—
“Baby Tang…”
“Baby System, are you okay?”
The moment Gu Tang opened the door, he saw a dispirited little boy.
It looked as though if he had opened the door even one second later, Baby System would have been blown away by the wind—fragile and helpless.
He welcomed him inside and brought out snacks and drinks.
As they ate, Gu Tang gradually pieced together what had happened.
Ling Ling had no energy. He couldn’t even really eat the snacks. He spoke in fragments, saying whatever came to mind without much order.
After stitching together all the scattered pieces, Gu Tang finally got the rough picture. “So you slept together twice, and you still don’t even know his name?”
Although that wasn’t really the main issue.
Ling Ling still nodded.
That was one of the problems between him and Senior.
Looking at it that way, there were actually a lot of problems between them. Sure enough, they really couldn’t date…
“Ah… well…”
Gu Tang hesitated. “I do know his name, but if it comes from me, I don’t think it really means much to you.”
Ling Ling nodded again.
Right. The biggest problem wasn’t his name.
He couldn’t just stand there and watch Senior die, and he definitely couldn’t be the one who harmed him.
Gu Tang reached out and stroked the little boy’s soft hair. “Baby System, you need to be more honest.”
Ling Ling looked miserable. “I can’t date him, wahhh…”
“Why not? Is there something you can’t say?”
Gu Tang was already automatically treating the boy in front of him as the little system.
They were just too alike.
He couldn’t help merging the two together in his mind.
So he could easily understand that maybe Ling Ling also had some unspeakable reason he couldn’t reveal.
Ling Ling really couldn’t say it. He only nodded, curled up on the sofa, and buried his head between his knees.
If he had to say anything, what he really wanted to do was curse the Main Brain for being cold and merciless.
Other people couldn’t even fall in love without it interfering!
And the way it corrected small worlds was so extreme that it would eventually cause disaster!
Inside his head, Ling Ling cursed the Main Brain nonstop.
At that moment, the doorbell rang urgently, startling him so badly he nearly rolled off the sofa.
“Careful!”
Gu Tang caught him, then went to answer the door.
The moment the door opened, it was like letting a gust of wind inside. It rushed all the way to the sofa.
Before Ling Ling could react, a handsome man was suddenly sitting beside him. He looked about seventy percent like President Gu, the one who made Ling Ling a little nervous.
But his overall temperament was completely different.
At that moment, that sharply sculpted face was full of anger.
“I’m so furious! I’m so furious!”
The man was gritting his teeth and muttering curses.
Gu Tang brought over a bottle of alcohol and stuffed it into the man’s arms, asking as though he were entirely used to this, “Uncle, did you fight with my second brother again?”
Gu Lin opened the bottle and gulped down several mouthfuls before wiping his mouth. “I broke up with him!”
Ling Ling immediately became tense.
But since he didn’t know the man that well, it wasn’t easy for him to offer any advice.
He could only stare at him with round apricot eyes, full of concern.
“No need to worry.”
Gu Tang patted the little boy reassuringly. “Those two break up several times a month.”
Ling Ling paused. “I see…”
Gu Lin wasn’t happy with that at all. He emphasized, “This time we really broke up! If I let him touch me one more time, I’ll take his surname!”
Gu Tang coughed lightly. “Uncle, there’s still a child here.”
Gu Lin glanced at Ling Ling and went back to sullenly drinking.
Ling Ling wanted to say that he was already in his twenties now, so strictly speaking he didn’t count as a child.
And besides, he and Senior had also…
Anyway, he could still join the topic.
From what Gu family’s uncle was saying, it was already pretty obvious who was top and who was bottom.
It was just a little surprising.
Someone with a personality as strong as Uncle Gu’s could still get into this repeated cycle of breaking up and getting back together. Ling Ling had honestly assumed that if someone angered him once, Uncle would have kicked them to the curb immediately.
“I wish I could kick him!”
Gu Lin had drunk enough that he was starting to talk more. “But the problem is, he’s too much of a dog!”
“Who has ever seen someone that shameless?”
“No, he’s not even human!”
“Sorry, darling… I didn’t mean to insult your second brother…”
Gu Lin still remembered to apologize before continuing, “But he really lied about everything!”
“At first he played pitiful and fooled me into taking him in. Said he wanted to enter the entertainment industry so he could expand his network, find his missing younger brother, and make money for his father’s medical bills…”
Gu Tang raised one hand. “My second brother didn’t lie about that part. He really was looking for me, and he really did need to pay our dad’s medical expenses.”
“But what the hell, he never told me he was the second young master of the Yu family!”
Gu Lin covered his face. “I thought he was some poor student I could easily handle, wahhh…”
Gu Tang scratched his head and explained to Ling Ling, “And then my second brother infiltrated Uncle’s side, tricked him into giving up his body and his heart, and after his identity was exposed, the whole thing turned into a crematorium-style wife-chasing arc.”
“A very fiery kind of crematorium,” Gu Tang added in a tiny whisper.
Ling Ling only half understood, but nodded obediently.
Inside, he felt even more guilty.
Compared to that, the things he had deceived Senior about were much worse.
He was hiding a stomach full of little secrets, not a single one of which he could tell Senior.
Not the slightest bit honest.
He could even end up costing Senior his life.
Compared with Uncle’s boyfriend, he was scummier, worse, more awful!
Senior really had terrible luck to have met him, wahhh…
The three of them kept talking until night.
Gu Lin was already extremely drunk and unconscious, sprawled across the sofa with the little blanket Gu Tang had put over his stomach.
Gu Tang glanced at the clock. “My second brother should be here soon.”
Just as he finished speaking, the doorbell rang.
Ling Ling looked surprised.
Gu Tang smiled. “I already told you, these two do this all the time. My second brother is smart—he always waits until Uncle’s anger has cooled down before coming over. And don’t be fooled by how grumpy Uncle acts—he’s waiting for my brother too. Otherwise, why would he keep coming here every time?”
Ling Ling nodded in realization.
That was right!
If someone genuinely didn’t want to be found, they would definitely run somewhere the other person would never think of.
Who would keep running away to the exact same place every time?
Yu Yang walked in and gave his younger brother and the guest a friendly smile. Granted, it was a slightly fake smile, but he was trying.
After all, his wife had been gone half the day, and he himself was in no better mood.
Without a word, he bundled up the drunk Gu Lin—blanket and all—and carried him away.
Ling Ling noticed that the expression on Yu Yang’s face changed the instant he picked Gu Lin up.
When he looked at Gu Lin, the fake smile vanished, replaced by an expression of absolute cherishing, as though he were holding an irreplaceable treasure.
Ling Ling felt that maybe there was some misunderstanding between them.
Maybe what Gu Lin called lies from Yu Yang were actually the sort of thing humans liked to call… harmless white lies?
He should probably learn from that.
As a system, it was difficult for him to understand these complicated, winding human emotions.
Knowing his own existence could hurt Senior,
his instinct was simply to disappear.
He couldn’t even come up with one decent lie to explain it…
After Yu Yang took Gu Lin away, Ling Ling stood up too. “I should go as well.”
If he stayed much longer, President Gu would probably be back soon.
He didn’t want to become a little third wheel and disturb his friend’s happy family life.
Gu Tang said, “I’ll have a driver take you.”
Ling Ling waved both hands. “No need. I already called my family’s driver.”
See? He was a quick learner. He had immediately learned how to lie.
Of course, he hadn’t actually called any driver.
He only said that to reassure Baby Tang.
Maybe he should also think of some harmless lie like this to deal with Senior…
The villa area at night was silent and still.
Ling Ling walked out alone. He wouldn’t be able to get a car until he reached the main road, and the distance wasn’t short.
The pitch-black surroundings made his heart crawl with fear, and his already low mood worsened.
It felt as though the darkness were swallowing him whole.
Heavy. Oppressive…
Ever since becoming capable of emotion, this was the first time the little system had ever felt so unhappy.
Suddenly, a gust of wind brushed past his ear.
Before Ling Ling could react, someone forcefully covered his mouth.
He struggled, making muffled “mmph mmph” sounds and kicking wildly, but unfortunately the other person was taller and much stronger. Grabbing him felt no harder than picking up a little chicken.
In no time at all, he was shoved into the back seat of a car.
The person let go of his mouth, and Ling Ling immediately opened his mouth to scream.
But the moment he did, the other person pressed down and sealed his lips with his own.
Ling Ling’s pupils suddenly shrank.
No!
He didn’t want to kiss anyone except Senior…
Using all the strength in his body, he shoved hard at the man pinning him beneath him, clenched his teeth shut, and refused to let the other person force his way in.
But the difference in strength was simply too great.
The man easily restrained his hands and feet, even freeing up one hand to pry his mouth open and force his way inside.
“Mm…”
Tears instantly sprang into Ling Ling’s eyes.
But in the very next second, he froze.
The familiar method, the familiar scent, the familiar unrestrained invasion…
Only then did the tension in his lips relax slightly.
Perhaps because he had felt the moisture on the boy’s face, the man finally turned on the overhead light.
The sudden, stabbing brightness made Ling Ling squeeze his eyes shut.
“Why are you crying?”
The man used his fingertip to brush at the wetness gathered at the corner of the boy’s eye. “Did I scare you?”
Hearing the voice made Ling Ling even more certain of his identity.
He raised a hand to cover his eyes, too guilty to look at him.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
Shen Si’s voice was slightly hoarse. “So now you’ve got guts? You hang up on me, switch off your phone, and don’t come home?”
Each sentence was followed by a light peck to those lips he had kissed red.
Teaching the little thing a lesson.
Ling Ling had been kissed until his whole body had gone soft.
But one thought still remained stretched tight inside his mind.
—Systems aren’t allowed to date humans.
If he recklessly gave in to what he wanted, then even if the Main Brain erased him, that wouldn’t matter much—but Senior would also lose his life because of him!
Senior was so good. So many people would definitely like him.
Very soon, Senior would forget about him…
“W-we can’t keep going like this…”
In the pauses between kisses, Ling Ling finally managed to squeeze out a single sentence from between his lips.
The words were quiet, but still clear enough.
Shen Si stopped and lowered his eyes to the boy pinned beneath him. “What do you mean?”
Ling Ling took a deep breath—
“Let’s break up.”
Shen Si: “…”
Ling Ling slowly lowered the hand covering his eyes.
With the bright light behind the man, he still couldn’t make out his expression clearly, but even without seeing it, he could feel the coldness pouring from him.
“Are you serious?”
The man asked.
Ling Ling nodded firmly. “Yes.”
His shoulders were suddenly gripped hard, the man’s fingers almost sinking into his flesh.
“Why?”
Shen Si’s eyes were dark and heavy. “You said you liked me. Was that all a lie?”
Ling Ling clenched his teeth. “Yes!”
That very day, he had just learned how to lie.
Now he could use it right away.
“You only realized that now?”
Ling Ling pressed his lips together and, with not much confidence, muttered, “…I’m just that kind of scumbag.”
Shen Si: “…”
Ling Ling went on, “Scumbags are all the same. Once they get what they want, they stop cherishing it.”
Shen Si narrowed his eyes and still said nothing.
Ling Ling forced out a mocking laugh, though it looked uglier than crying. “Who told you to be so easy to get? Hah. Got played by me, didn’t you?”
Shen Si bent down, his cold breath hitting the boy’s face. “Say that again?”
“If you didn’t hear it, then forget it.”
Ling Ling stubbornly clamped his mouth shut.
In the next second, he was forcefully kissed again.
The man brutally broke through his lips, kissing deeply inside, sucking the base of his tongue until it went numb and giving him absolutely no room to resist.
All Ling Ling could do was pound weakly on the man’s chest with both fists.
And he couldn’t even bear to hit that hard.
The pendant hanging at the man’s neck was shaken loose by his fists and fell against Ling Ling’s chest.
The cool material of the pendant made him shiver.
At the same time, he suddenly felt a chill at his waist.
He quickly grabbed at his pants to stop them from being pulled off. “I don’t want this!”
The man ignored him completely.
In a few quick motions, his shirt was ripped into ragged strips and thrown aside.
Then the man buried his head against his body, kissing and biting all over him.
Punishing him, leaving one red mark after another.
Ling Ling began to cry, kicking wildly. “I already said I don’t want this!”
Hearing the boy’s sobbing, Shen Si’s rationality finally returned a little. He stopped, breathing heavily as he stared down at the ruined mess he had made of the person beneath him.
Ling Ling covered his chest and wiped his tears. “What are you so angry about?”
“You don’t even like me that much! You won’t even tell me your name!”
“At most, we can only be… be…”
He steeled himself and forced out the words even though he knew they would hurt him. “Friends with benefits!”
“A casual fling. Do you understand?”
Shen Si felt as though he were losing his mind from anger, his head splitting with pain. “Good. Very good!”
The man finally got off him and stepped out of the car.
Just as Ling Ling was about to sit up, the man threw a suit jacket over him.
And knocked him right back down with it.
Clutching the coat, Ling Ling watched as the man lit a cigarette outside the car, took several fierce drags, crushed it out, then walked around to the driver’s seat and got in.
He had never seen Senior smoke before.
He had never even smelled smoke on him. Senior had always smelled clean and fresh, like grass and trees.
That meant Senior had been made really, truly angry by him.
And even so, he still worried that Ling Ling would be cold and gave him a coat to wear…
Wahhh, Senior was so nice…
The little system put on the jacket while crying with gratitude, completely and selectively forgetting who had shredded his clothes just a moment ago.
If it were possible, he didn’t want to make Senior angry either.
But if he didn’t make the words sound absolute, someone as kind as Senior would definitely never agree to break up with him.
Ling Ling silently mouthed I’m sorry toward the back of the man’s head in his heart, then prepared to get out of the car.
Only to find the door wouldn’t open.
He was locked inside.
“Let me out…”
He said in a small voice.
The other man ignored him completely.
“What are you doing? Let me out!”
Ling Ling began to panic, clawing at the door and the window.
He was afraid that if this dragged on, his lying skills wouldn’t be good enough and he wouldn’t be able to fool Senior anymore.
At last, the man spoke.
Without even turning his head, Shen Si said darkly, “If you dare move one more time, I’ll lock you somewhere with no doors and no windows and keep doing you until you can’t even close your legs. Then let’s see where exactly you think you can run.”
“!”
Ling Ling was timid by nature, and those words scared him so badly that he shuddered hard.
Shen Si closed his eyes. Two minutes later, he started the car.
The entire ride, Ling Ling didn’t dare say another word.
In fact, deep down, he secretly thought—
If Senior really did do that, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
If Senior locked him up in a place without doors or windows, maybe then the Main Brain wouldn’t be able to find them.
Then he could be together with Senior and wouldn’t end up getting Senior killed by the Main Brain.
They could stay together forever…
But unfortunately, Senior only drove him home.
When they reached the Ling residence, the car door clicked open.
After getting out, Ling Ling looked at the man’s expression and said worriedly, “It isn’t safe for you to drive like this right now…”
Shen Si only looked at him from the corner of his eye.
He didn’t say a single word.
By the time Ling Ling came back to himself, all he could see was the receding glow of the taillights in the distance.
“Didn’t you say you weren’t drinking anymore? Then why are you drinking again?”
His friend leaned closer and teased him.
As though he hadn’t heard a thing, Ling Ling downed another glass.
Now he finally understood why Gu Lin drank whenever he fought with Yu Yang.
Drink enough, and you get drunk. Get drunk, and you fall asleep.
Then when you wake up, someone comes to pick you up.
And after waking again, it’s like nothing ever happened, and the two of you are happily together again…
But he wasn’t that lucky.
Senior was never coming to pick him up again.
His mind was full of the look the man had given him that night.
That one look had been incredibly complicated.
The little system couldn’t interpret it.
But he knew one thing.
They were done.
Seeing that Ling Ling wasn’t speaking, his friend simply helped him to a private room so he could drink there.
The moment they stepped inside, System 2222 eagerly took over his host’s body and dropped Ling Ling down onto the sofa.
Ling Ling was tipsy. In his dazed state, he vaguely felt someone touching his face.
System 2222 murmured in his ear, “This face and this body are really excellent. The Main Brain is absurdly biased toward you.”
Ling Ling waved his hand away. “Go away. Don’t touch me.”
“Still thinking about that man?”
System 2222 clicked his tongue. “Everything about this body is good, except the fact that some man already touched it makes it a little disgusting. But never mind. Once it becomes mine, I’ll clean it very thoroughly.”
Ling Ling’s head was spinning. “What are you talking about?”
“Have you ever heard of possession?”
System 2222 suddenly asked.
Ling Ling didn’t understand. “What?”
“Soul exchange.”
System 2222’s lips curled into a smile. “My current host is far too useless. He can’t be carried any further. If this keeps up, the Main Brain will definitely erase me. But if the two of us switch, and I go into your body while you do my work instead, then the one who gets erased by the Main Brain will be you.”
Ling Ling had never heard anything so horrifying. He sobered by at least thirty percent on the spot. “Aren’t you afraid of being found out?!”
“Afraid of what?”
System 2222 smiled even wider. “You’ve already been formatted. You’re basically a blank sheet. As long as I keep pretending not to remember anything, who could possibly notice?”
Ling Ling felt as though all the blood in his body had gone cold.
He wanted to run.
But his legs were weak.
The alcohol had drained all his strength away.
Alcohol really was the worst thing ever!!!
Seeing his powerless struggle, System 2222 sneered. “Oh, by the way—your man is rich, isn’t he?”
“He’s handsome too. Great body. And I bet he’s pretty interesting in bed.”
“If I were you, I’d just play around with him.”
“In your dreams!!!”
Ling Ling didn’t even know where the strength came from, but he suddenly shoved System 2222 away with all his might.
His chest rose and fell violently as he shouted, “Don’t even think about it! Senior is mine!”
Bang—
The private room door was kicked open.
Ling Ling turned toward the sound and saw a tall man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist standing in the doorway.
The man wasn’t looking at him.
Instead, his gaze was fixed on the fallen System 2222 with icy contempt, black mist coiling in his palm.
Before anyone else could react,
that black mist flew out like an arrow released from a bow.
It pierced straight through System 2222’s chest.
System 2222 only had time to gasp, “M-Main… Main Brain…”
before his pupils dilated and he collapsed to the ground.
Ling Ling froze completely.
The man walked toward him and crouched down in front of him. “Don’t be afraid. I only erased System 2222. I didn’t touch its host. The human will wake up soon.”
Ling Ling could see the man’s lips moving, but the ringing in his ears was so loud that he couldn’t hear a single word.
“You’ve gone stupid?”
Shen Si sighed. “Well, you were stupid to begin with.”
As he spoke, he reached out to pick up the little boy.
Ling Ling shrank backward. “Y-you’re not human!”
Shen Si looked helpless. “Why are you cursing me now?”
Ling Ling pointed at him with a trembling finger. “You’re the Main Brain!!!”
Shen Si said, “Let me explain.”
“I’m not listening!”
Ling Ling covered his ears with both hands and made wild guesses on his own. “I know now! This is why you formatted me! Because I discovered the secret that you’re the Main Brain, right?!”
Shen Si pulled both of his thin wrists away from his ears. “That wasn’t really discovered, no.”
Ling Ling: “Then why did you format me?”
Shen Si sounded speechless. “Wasn’t it your own request? You wanted to exchange it for a discount on a small-world reward. I even asked you repeatedly to confirm.”
Ling Ling blinked.
Thinking about it carefully,
it was true that the Main Brain had asked him whether there was anyone whose memories he wanted to preserve.
It was just that after being formatted, his memory stopped at that exact point. He couldn’t remember anything before it, so he never realized that the Main Brain’s words had actually been a hint.
Forget it…
Even before he’d been formatted, he probably wouldn’t have understood the hidden meaning anyway.
He really was stupid, okay?!!!
Ling Ling: Which only made him even more annoyed!
“Although I formatted you, I preserved your memories.”
The instant Shen Si saw how angry the little boy looked, he hurried to soothe him, taking the pendant from around his own neck. “I kept them close to me all the time. Carried them with me everywhere.”
The thought that his memories—basically fragments of his soul—
had been hanging there at the man’s chest all this time made Ling Ling’s face flush red.
He spread out his palm. “Give it back to me!”
But Shen Si clasped the pendant tightly, hesitation flickering in his expression.
Ling Ling frowned. “You can’t?”
Shen Si’s eyes wavered slightly. “Once you remember everything, you might get angry.”
“I won’t.”
The little boy shook his head with complete certainty. “I want to remember you. And I want to know your name.”
The more Ling Ling said, the more embarrassed he became, until he slowly lowered his head.
“I also want to be with you…”
His chin was lifted.
The other man slowly leaned in and kissed him on the lips as though cherishing something precious beyond compare.
After a deep kiss they had both long missed, Shen Si felt as though all his broken emotions had finally been filled in. Holding the boyfriend he had chased across several worlds, he said softly, “You’ll know. I’ll tell you everything…”
The next day, when Ling Ling woke up, the pendant was lying over his heart.
Only now it had lost its shine and become nothing more than an ordinary accessory.
And he—
had recovered his memories.
Like a flood, memory poured through his mind—
How he had turned into a little black cat and been forcefully flipped over and petted all the way up his tail.
How he had turned into a tiny shell, only to have cosmic-horror tentacles pry him open and toy with the soft flesh inside.
Or how he had finally managed to become something close to human—a little angel—only to be shut away in a dark room by the High Priest and kept in bed every day to the point that he couldn’t get up…
Then he lowered his head and looked at the body covered with little scattered red marks.
And remembered how the man had coaxed him the previous night into doing this and that all over again.
No matter how mild-tempered Ling Ling was, a delicate little blue vein still twitched at his temple.
He turned and glared at the man sleeping next to him—
“Shen Si! Get up right now!”
The Main Brain, having eaten his fill and been fully satisfied, was woken by his beloved little system but wasn’t angry in the slightest. Not a single trace of negative emotion could be found on him.
Shen Si rubbed his eyes and sat up.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he gathered the little boy into his arms, nuzzling his head into the hollow of Ling Ling’s neck. “You saying my name actually sounds really nice.”
Ling Ling: “…”
Seeing that his boyfriend said nothing, Shen Si even started looking aggrieved. “See? I told you. Once you got your memories back, you’d be mad.”
Ling Ling: “…”
Was that the issue here?!
Help
What was he supposed to do if his boyfriend was a pervert?!!
After Becoming Cannon Fodder What Bad Intentions Could I Possibly Have?
