Within the System Space.

N001 twisted its white, rice-cake-like body, struggling to extend a small, hand-like nub. It wiped back and forth across its forehead a few times, as if wiping away non-existent sweat, and finally let out a long sigh.
“Phew, as expected of me.”
“Successfully triggered a bug! Sure enough… when it comes to uploading fake data packets, this System is quite dedicated. The timing was absolutely perfect!”

In the corner.
The blue orb remained silent, vainly generating a massive amount of redundant data.

Time rewound to two minutes ago.
When the Host entered the intensive care ward, the Character Synchronization Program automatically activated.
The underlying logic of this program was to retrieve the corresponding plot fragments from the original novel, extract the intense emotions of the original NPC within it, and through matching, cause the Host to naturally react with similar logic to the NPC, thereby improving the efficiency and probability of completing the task.

…If there were no accidents, this was how it should have been.
But just as the Character Synchronization Program was matching keywords for the Host, the Main System N001 once again showed off to the Task Evaluation Sub-System, giving it a vivid demonstration of what is called “When it comes to illegal operations, your grandpa is a professional.”

It pulled out a data packet of unknown origin from who knows where, and backhandedly replaced the original novel fragment that was currently syncing on the holographic screen!
It was replaced with a fake data packet of unknown origin.

The blue orb, which had witnessed everything: […]

Strictly speaking, the Character Synchronization Sub-System couldn’t really be considered a ‘System’.
It was a rigid program temporarily coded by Headquarters after receiving the Sub-System’s strictly business-like task reports and error logs. It wasn’t equipped with a super AI brain or a system disk drive.
At most, it was just a system plugin.
Because of this, there were only two small orbs existing in the System Space with the capacity for intelligent communication.

At this very moment, the true intern system—the Sub-System—finally couldn’t hold it in anymore.
For the first time, it broke the system regulations it strictly adhered to and used an unofficial, non-workplace form of address.

[Senior…]
The blue orb’s smooth electronic voice was filled with confusion: [I cannot understand, Senior. Why are you hindering the task’s progress?]

The white orb, shaped like a rice cake, lay in front of the light screen and rolled its eyes: “Huh? How am I hindering the task progress? Are you kidding me? I’m very seriously urging the Host to complete the task, hey!”
It kicked the eyesore of a blue orb far away, muttering and complaining:
“What does a fresh-off-the-assembly-line, mass-produced system like you know? Stop interrupting how the task is completed; I have my own rhythm.”

At the end, it even added a vicious warning,
“Hehe, if you dare tattle to Headquarters again this time, you’re dead meat!”

The blue orb earnestly retorted: [Senior, this is where my duty lies.]

The System didn’t care, skillfully threatening:
“Whatever you want. Anyway, your final regularization report will have my evaluation comments… Haha, if you get complained about and returned to the factory on your very first mission, even as an orb, you probably won’t have any prospects in this lifetime, right?”

The blue orb: [……]
Redundancy, redundancy, countless redundancies.

After a few seconds.
The blue orb reminded: [Even if I don’t submit the records of your illegal operations, Senior, Headquarters will definitely discover the uploading of a fabricated, fake data packet.]

“Tch, who told you this was a fake data packet fabricated out of thin air?”
The System leaned back in front of the screen, looking at the image appearing on it, and muttered with a small sigh,
“Wow, I really couldn’t tell…”
“The Host was actually quite cute when he was little.”

“Tap, tap, tap—”

The old residential building had no elevator installed; tenants could only rely on walking up and down.
Because the stairwell was narrow, and the windows were small and unventilated, whenever someone climbed up or down, the sound of shoes scraping against the stone steps would echo through the stairwell.
Today, these sounds were exceptionally light, almost without an echo.

It was evening, and the sky was a bit gloomy.
The yellow dusk light slipped in through the broken windowpane, dyeing the stairwell a dull red.

A boy, not even as tall as the handrail beside him, carried a backpack and climbed up step by step with his head down. When he reached the fifth floor, he happened to bump into a middle-aged woman walking out carrying a bag of kitchen waste.
Upon catching sight of the little boy, the woman subconsciously let out an “Aiyo”. When the boy raised his head to reveal that completely expressionless face, she asked with a complicated expression,
“Lin Zhu, you’re back from school?”

The boy nodded.
He looked less than ten years old and was very thin, but his cheeks still held the soft baby fat unique to children, making him look soft and milky—it was just that his eye shape wasn’t round enough, showing too much white, which made him appear somewhat gloomy.

The middle-aged woman crouched down, whispering awkwardly,
“Little Zhu, your dad seems to have come back this afternoon. Just now upstairs for a long time, I don’t know if he again… Hey, you?”

Before she could finish speaking, the boy’s pupils suddenly shrank, and he immediately bolted upstairs.
“Tap, tap, tap,” turned into “thump, thump, thump.”
Then came the ear-piercing noise of a poorly maintained door slamming.
“…Crash!”

The middle-aged woman shook her head and sighed: “What a sin.”

Lin Zhu entered the front door, and the living room was already a sight too tragic to look at.
The shabby two-bedroom apartment looked as if it had been swept through by a hurricane; everywhere the eye could see was a complete mess.
The boy took a hasty glance. Finding no traces of blood, he couldn’t help but let out a long breath. Immediately after, without even taking the time to take off his backpack, he immediately trotted over to the master bedroom door and reached out to twist the doorknob.

It didn’t twist.
It had been locked from the outside with a key by that person again.

Lin Zhu grabbed the cardholder hanging against his chest, pulled out the student ID card clipped inside, and skillfully inserted it into the door crack, using a clever technique to slide it left and right…
Very quickly.
Click.

The door lock was swiped open by him using the hard card, and the card’s surface was also left with heavy scratch marks. The words [Grade 3, Class 2, Lin Zhu] became blurry, and the student photo was also scratched up.
If there was a padlock on the door, he could have pried it open with an iron wire even faster and more skillfully.

Lin Zhu held the card and pushed the door open to walk in.
The lights weren’t turned on in the bedroom, and the curtains were drawn tight; neither the sunset glow nor the moonlight could break in. The child bypassed the scattered debris on the floor and walked toward the large bed in the center of the room.
“…Mom?”

The blanket on the bed was very messy. A thin, frail figure lay curled within it, unclear if she was awake or asleep.
Following Lin Zhu’s quiet call, that figure shifted… Then, a slender arm covered in bruises reached out from the corner of the blanket, beckoning the boy over, and stroked his soft cheek with extreme affection.

“Mom is here,” she replied.

Lin Zhu nuzzled against the woman’s slightly cool palm, while simultaneously letting his two thin little arms hang behind his back. With a few gentle shakes, the backpack straps slipped off his tender shoulders.
Having lost its support point, the heavy backpack hit the floor with a muffled thud.

In the darkness.
Lin Zhu pursed his lips and quietly crawled in from the corner of the blanket, curling up into the woman’s embrace. His two fair little hands gently brushed past the woman’s cheek, neck, and arm…
Like touching cotton, or gathering white clouds.
He didn’t dare use even a little bit of force.
As if he would shatter the woman into pieces if he pushed too hard.

After a long time, the child said softly:
“…Can we go to the hospital, please?”

The woman shook her head.
Then, Lin Zhu asked again: “Then can we secretly move out, and not tell Dad?”

The woman shook her head again.
She hugged the child in her arms, whose hands and feet were as warm as a furnace, and stayed silent for a long time. Not knowing where to start explaining, she could only say vaguely:
“Dad… actually, Dad didn’t mean it. He just loves Mom too much, and he’s terrified Mom will leave him, so that’s why he always gets angry.”

She paused, trying hard to make her tone sound light, not knowing if she was trying to deceive herself or others, “It’s okay, Mom doesn’t feel the pain.”

After speaking, she reached out and clicked on the nightlight on the bedside table.
In the soft light, the dark bruises on the woman’s face seemed to be softened by a few degrees, making them look less glaring.
She pinched the boy’s cheek, which looked even more expressionless than usual, and held his quietly clenched little fist, emphasizing once more, “…It’s true.”

The young boy never threw loud tantrums.
He was very well-behaved and quiet. Even when he was angry, he just stiffly kept a straight face, opening his eyes wide to reveal a lot of the whites—then habitually clenched his fists and said in a very calm tone,
“Right now, I’m really, really, really angry.”

Those droopy eyes that usually looked so lethargic were wide open. The pupils were as deep as ink, yet didn’t let in a single ray of light.
It made the boy look like an angered little wolf pup, especially since he had grown two pairs of sharp canine teeth.

He repeated it word by word,
“Right now, I am completely, exceptionally angry.”

Lin Zhu clenched his fists tightly, thumbs tucked inside,
“Why does Mom never tell me the truth? I already asked Teacher Chen, and she said… it’s because I’m too little.”
“Because adults don’t like asking kids for help.”
“So—”
“Right now, I am extremely angry at myself.”

Lin Zhu squatted by the bathtub, verbally apologizing for scratching Yan Ruoyun’s medical insurance card, while his hands completely unceremoniously hauled the dripping-wet man out of the icy water.
“Doctor Xu said you can’t soak in cold water for too long, it’s bad for your body, we need to watch out for pneumonia…”
Saying this, he stripped off the wet clothes from the man, which didn’t have a single dry spot left, then yanked over a disposable bath towel from the rack and hastily dried the man off with a few rubs.

Throughout the process, Yan Ruoyun leaned weakly and dazedly against Lin Zhu, a bit confused about the situation.
His originally suppressed emotions were caught off guard by this sudden turn of events, and right now, he couldn’t string them together anymore.
He couldn’t even stop Lin Zhu from carrying his completely naked self out of the bathroom.

“Wait… wait a minute, Lin Zhu!”
As he spoke, Yan Ruoyun was tossed neither lightly nor heavily onto the spacious hospital bed by the youth. Even though his body didn’t hurt at all, he accidentally bit the tip of his own tongue.
“Hiss…”
The rusty taste of blood lingering in his mouth grew even stronger.
“You wait…”

Before he could finish his sentence, he saw the blond youth lean down and plant a heavy kiss on his lips.
Then, Lin Zhu caught the man’s tongue and rejected him in a tone where no trace of annoyance could be heard: “I can’t wait.”

Both his hands were propped on either side of Yan Ruoyun, curled into fists. “Ge (Brother)… Doctor Xu told me, you only fainted after you entered the hospital doors.”
“Before that, why didn’t you call me the very first second?”
“You clearly knew…”
“How dangerous the situation was…”

Yan Ruoyun couldn’t hear what he was mumbling clearly at all. Coupled with the biological heat striking again, it instantly scrambled his chaotic brain even further.
He was about to completely shut down.

His gaze gradually grew hazy, losing focus. His two hands rested weakly on Lin Zhu’s shoulders, as if gently pushing outward…
But his fingers were clutching Lin Zhu’s collar tightly, refusing to let go.

Yan Ruoyun lost control over his own lips and tongue. His normally incredibly clear articulation and enunciation became blurry and choked at this moment, and his voice softened by several degrees.
He just kept saying, over and over,
“Don’t deep mark…”
“Don’t deep mark me right now, Lin Zhu.”
“Listen to me…”

Hearing this.
Lin Zhu indeed very obediently released his tongue.
A silver thread of saliva stretched between their lips, breaking silently in an instant.

Lin Zhu raised his eyes, reached out to wipe away the moisture at the corner of Yan Ruoyun’s mouth, stared at him fixedly for several seconds, and then, with a flip of his large hands—
He forcefully flipped Yan Ruoyun over!

The man’s face was suddenly buried into the fluffy pillow. His words were intermittent, completely incomprehensible as to what he was saying…
He lay prone on the hospital bed with his back arched. His skin was slightly flushed from the biological heat, and his two hands gripped the bedsheets, struggling incessantly, making the butterfly bones on his back look as if they were trembling and about to take flight.

Lin Zhu lowered his upper body, his movements clean and decisive.
One hand pressed down on the back of Yan Ruoyun’s neck, while the other brushed his hair aside, exposing the swollen, scalding gland to the air.
The piercing beeps of the subcutaneous monitor still echoed in the air.
Lin Zhu turned his face and cast a quick glance, noticing the value fluctuating up and down, always displaying a highly dangerous four-digit number.

Just at this moment.
He suddenly realized that Yan Ruoyun had become very quiet.

And two brief seconds later, a very muffled and peculiar sound suddenly came from under the pillow.
The volume was so low—if Lin Zhu hadn’t been so close, it would have been almost inaudible.

That was a very short, suppressed sob.