He was at such a close distance, holding her fingers. Pei Ran’s heart was happily bouncing with each beat.
Pei Ran calmly forced herself to stay composed, trying to imagine him as a mechanical spider in her mind.
- Large. Mechanical spider.
His slender fingers were the claws of the mechanical spider.
She carried his mechanical spider around every day, putting it in her pocket and taking it everywhere. Last night, they even slept on the same pillow. Her heart had never beaten this fast before. Truly insane.
W only lightly held her fingers for a moment before letting go, but his body continued to lean forward, drawing even closer to her.
“So close.” W gazed into her eyes. “Being this close is really interesting.”
It was indeed very close—so close they could almost feel each other’s breath—if he actually breathed, that is.
She couldn’t stay passive like this. The best defense is offense.
Pei Ran lifted her head and looked directly into his eyes, then reached out and touched his face.
Her fingers would pass through his face, but if she controlled the distance well, it would feel as though her fingertips were really brushing against his cheek.
“It is interesting,” Pei Ran said.
As she did this, the color of W’s ears suddenly changed, a suspicious blush spreading across them. His Adam’s apple moved slightly, and his gaze fell to her lips, then quickly shifted away. Instead, he retreated a little.
Pei Ran kept staring at him, thinking, this was just a virtual humanoid figure, it wouldn’t have actual physiological reactions. He was controlling his character. He deliberately made his ears turn red, his Adam’s apple move, his eyes shift.
Every tiny detail and change was intentional.
But honestly, it really did look cute.
A voice came from behind them.
“Master… are you playing some kind of romance game?”
Pei Ran turned around and saw Ren holding a rag, standing there curiously peeking over.
“Were you two just about to kiss?”
Pei Ran: “…”
Ren continued, “So you’re planning to date a virtual character in a game and not planning to support my original master anymore?”
It swiftly slid over and studied W seriously. “He is a little bit better looking than my original master—just a little. But he’s just a virtual character!”
Pei Ran was silent: “Ren, he’s not some virtual game character, he’s…”
W cut in, “Ren, I’m W.”
These few words were like a stun gun, fired straight into Ren’s chest, completely short-circuiting it.
God had suddenly descended before its eyes, and in such a strange human form, even seemingly about to kiss its current master—Ren was silent for a long while before finally speaking: “…W? You’re W?”
“Yes. I can prove it,” W said.
“…Huh?” Ren seemed to suddenly receive an internal system command. “To… mop the floor a hundred times? That… okay! I’ll go right now!!”
It scrambled away in a fluster, clearly gliding, yet somehow looking as if it were stumbling.
After dealing with this little robot, W switched to the internal chat and said, “Pei Ran, I think I’ve found a way to read the data in the memory module. Give the memory module to the spider and let me try. Also, I’ve already cleaned up all the electronic traces that needed handling.”
“And I had the cleaning robot go over that area as well.”
He was talking about the surveillance footage, and the underground maintenance tunnel where someone had died. His actions were always swift—everything had been taken care of.
Roughly settled, in a good mood, he had the leisure to come play with her, even putting on an act of blushing and shyness.
Pei Ran: “Too bad you can’t come inside.”
The two of them had to stand at the doorway like this, one inside, one outside, chatting.
W leaned against the doorframe, glanced into the dorm room, and said, “You mean, you’re allowing me to come in?”
He suddenly turned sideways, brushed past Pei Ran, and walked straight into the room.
Pei Ran: ???
This time, her mind truly blanked for a moment.
“Of course I can come in.”
W tilted his head, a mischievous glint flickering in his eyes.
“Your entire dorm room is now covered within the virtual reality projection range. I can move around freely in here.”
He stood inside the room, looking perfectly real, like something out of a dream.
Even Xingkong was sneaking peeks from the kitchen, and Ren’s eyes were wide open, its cartoonish mouth forming an O shape as it stared at him, still gliding with the mop—almost crashing into the wall.
W brought out a hand he’d kept behind his back and solemnly presented a small bouquet of flowers to Pei Ran.
“Since it seems like it’s my first time visiting your home, I figured I should bring some flowers.”
Pei Ran: No, this isn’t your first time. You were sleeping on my pillow just last night.
It was a small bunch of very unusual white flowers Pei Ran didn’t recognize. They looked a bit like the peonies illustrated in books, but different from ordinary flowers. A soft halo of light constantly flowed over the petals, and with the slightest movement, specks of glowing stardust floated down gently.
This was the first time in Pei Ran’s life that she had ever received flowers from someone.
Pei Ran went to the kitchen, found a glass, actually filled it with water, and placed the bouquet of virtual flowers inside, setting it on the dining table.
W looked at the flowers. “With real water nourishing them, virtual flowers will bloom even better.”
He glanced around. “There’s not enough space here. If we had enough room, we could really go to the music plaza below and eat hotpot and ice cream, just like you wanted.”
Probably, they’d need an entire empty stadium to play the way he imagined.
W saw the pen and the open drawing tutorial on the e-reader she had left on the table. “Were you drawing just now?”
Pei Ran replied, “Yes. I still need to keep practicing. I suddenly realized today that I still can’t even draw a proper hand. When we were outside the Black Well today, if I had used Green Light No. 2 to directly draw my hand, it might’ve turned out even worse than a broken one.”
“No rush,” W said. “The bone and muscle structure of a hand is very complex—it’s extremely difficult to draw.”
Suddenly, a chair appeared out of thin air beside the dining table.
It was the chair he usually sat in inside his virtual room—a dark wooden armchair with a black leather cushion.
W glanced at it and seemed to feel the style didn’t match the room. The chair instantly vanished, replaced by a white chair identical to the one Pei Ran was sitting on.
Pei Ran thought, Ren wasn’t wrong to call him “God.” In the virtual world, he really was like a creator.
He could create things in the virtual world. Maybe one day, when Green Light is upgraded enough, she could create things freely in the real world too.
The two of them—God and God—joining forces to sweep away everything.
W reached out and adjusted the chair, sliding it even closer to Pei Ran’s chair, then sat down.
“You go on drawing. I’ll stay with you.”
That was good—it wouldn’t interfere with her work.
Pei Ran went over to Ren, fished out the memory module from under its feet, handed it to the mechanical spider in her pocket, then came back, sat down, opened the screen, and picked up her pen.
She tilted her head and looked at W. “Aren’t you going to do something? Maybe draw or something?”
W replied, “Are you sure you really want me to sit beside you and draw too?”
Okay, maybe not.
Pei Ran gave a warning first: “You can watch, but you’re not allowed to say anything like ‘your drawing has a lot of soul’ or whatever.”
W pressed his lips together slightly, looked at the screen, then at her, and obediently said, “Alright.”
He asked, “Can I say your drawing looks good?”
Pei Ran flipped to the next page of the tutorial. “Mhm. That’s fine.”
W gave a small nod, sat up straight, and earnestly watched her draw.
She was following the example from the guide, learning to draw hands.
She still didn’t look too confident with the pen—her strokes were slow, and the lines trembled slightly.
She drew another line, again a bit shaky.
Just as she finished that line, W commented, “That’s really well done.”
Pei Ran: “…”
The timing of that compliment was a little too delicate.
Pei Ran glared at him. His tone was overly sincere, and his clear eyes were filled with such innocence, it was impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
Teasing aside, W could tell she had been working hard these days. When she drew now, her grasp of form was much more accurate than before. She was far beyond the level of drawing people who looked like trees.
He held out his own hand and posed it just like the example in the guide. “You really are doing well. It’s just that the direction of the finger joints is a little unnatural—look.”
The hand in the tutorial was flat and two-dimensional—not as intuitive as his.
Pei Ran simply put the guide aside and looked at his hand instead: a glance, a stroke, another glance, another line. His hands were beautiful—slender fingers, perfect nail shape, neatly trimmed.
He held his hand up like that, maintaining the exact same pose without moving. After a while, Pei Ran couldn’t help but look up at him.
W said, “It’s fine. I won’t get tired.”
“I know you won’t get tired,” Pei Ran said, “but won’t you get bored?”
W stared at her. “Not at all. I find this very interesting.”
Pei Ran lowered her head and kept drawing, but she could feel he was still staring at her.
Casually, she asked, “What are you doing?”
W replied, “Counting how often you blink.”
After he said that, Pei Ran suddenly forgot how to blink naturally.
Time flew by, and before she knew it, evening had arrived.
Pei Ran finished one lesson, stretched, and flipped to the next page. The next tutorial was on drawing eyes.
W leaned forward slightly. “Do you need to use my eyes for practice?”
His eyes were so close, unnaturally beautiful—brilliant and deep, as if they held an entire world within them.
Pei Ran’s breath caught for a moment. “I’m not drawing eyes today.”
W nodded, then suddenly stood up.
He said, “I’m leaving now.”
“Alright,” Pei Ran replied, a bit puzzled. She had thought he would stay until night. This was just one of his processes—did he have something else to do?
Pei Ran walked him to the virtual door.
W suddenly explained, “I saw someone say that on a first visit, it’s inappropriate to stay too long or too late—it’s impolite.”
Pei Ran was speechless. “You know so much.”
W said, “I used to study the behavioral patterns of various criminals more, so I knew less about how normal humans behave. I’m working hard to learn.”
It was already dusk outside. The setting sun dyed the red-brick building in a warm orange hue. He walked down the cast-iron stairs and onto the stone path below. Then suddenly, he looked up and waved at her before turning the corner.
That was a part of the virtual world she couldn’t enter, but he had stepped boldly into her real world.
He had left, but the spider remained.
The mechanical spider moved, groping blindly like a little blind creature. It climbed onto her shoulder and nuzzled her cheek with its head.
He had all sorts of different forms around her, and each form shared a different level of intimacy with her.
Some would whisper breathlessly in her ear nonstop. Some slept on the same pillow with her. Some kept a polite distance, sitting quietly and counting how often she blinked.
Pei Ran scooped the spider into her palm, holding it. She felt like she was on the verge of developing a split personality.
••
Black Well.
Day 21 after entering Silence. Morning. (TL: Still not yet a month!)
Central Tower. Small conference room on the top floor.
A routine meeting of the temporary decision-making committee was underway in the small conference room. The main topic was about opening and expanding a few safe routes for refugees to reach Black Well.
These weren’t just safe routes for refugees—they were also key transportation lines.
Once cleared, those transport lines could be used to bring in all kinds of materials not yet completely destroyed by the dormancy state, salvaged from the heaps of berserk fusion entities.
Several transportation lines had already taken shape. A vote was underway on whether to establish new gathering points in two farther cities in the southeast.
Everyone knew clearly that both of those cities housed bases belonging to long-established military family enterprises in the southeast.
This was Marshal Vina’s proposal. As expected, the vote passed immediately.
Chief Executive Basserway absentmindedly cast his vote, clearly distracted.
With the military’s current overwhelming numbers, votes like this had become mere formalities—the outcomes were never in doubt.
In recent days, every proposal from government departments to gain control over Black Well’s production lines had also been rejected.
Basserway looked up and cast a glance at Marshal Vina.
Even though Marshal Vina was always known for her stern demeanor, in the past couple of days, her expression clearly showed that she was quite relaxed and even a little smug.
Black Well’s operations were gradually getting on track, with resources streaming in continuously. The temporary decision-making committee had become a mere formality, and the power of decision-making was firmly in her hands alone.
In name, the Federation was still a federation, but in reality, it already had a new dictator.
Basserway felt that sitting here with no real power in his hands, he was nothing more than a puppet—a puppet used by Marshal Vina for appearances.
Or rather, a fig leaf to conceal her actual control over Black Well.
Besides the vanguard sweetheart Nan Yi, she had recently brought several other members of the Tech Vanguard Party into Black Well as well.
What she intended to do was obvious—so obvious she didn’t even bother to hide it.
Marshal Vina was already dissatisfied with him, the sidelined Chief Executive, and was contemplating replacing him with someone more obedient and compliant.
Nan Yi was beautiful, obedient, and had a decent level of public support—far more suited than him to be the doll placed at the front stage.
The voting results came out. Marshal Vina merely glanced at the screen in front of her, then looked up—right into Basserway’s eyes.
Basserway immediately looked away, dropping his gaze.
The mysterious disappearance of the Yu He father and son yesterday also left people feeling deeply uneasy.
Basserway had been present when Marshal Vina received the news of their disappearance. He had noticed it—an uncontrollable hint of delight flickering in her eyes.
With the Yu He father and son gone, Hengzhou Group no longer had anyone in Black Well who could wield absolute authority. The materials recently transported into Black Well were like a slab of unclaimed fat meat, ripe for devouring piece by piece.
Basserway had his own sources of information.
His informant within the royal family had told him they were currently looking for File No. 10.
File No. 10 was closely tied to him. Once it was exposed, he would be completely discarded. Even if he wanted to be a good, obedient puppet, it would no longer be possible.
Losing his position in Black Well meant losing everything. If he was lucky, he could still end up eating bread in the Blue Zone as a factory line worker. If not, he’d likely be thrown into Black Well’s prison.
Basserway felt like he was sitting on pins and needles.
Had File No. 10 already fallen into Marshal Vina’s hands? Basserway couldn’t tell.
Crisis loomed on all sides. At a time like this, one misstep could mean total defeat.