Stopping at Nothing to Gain a Mate’s Favor
///
Jiang Kou wanted to get more information out of A’s mouth, but she really couldn’t hold on any longer.
A cold, fever, chills, cold sweat dripping down, and on top of that, she had been drenched in a heavy rainstorm, her clothes constantly sticking to her body in a damp mess.
The fact that she had managed to persist until now was already proof of her strong physical endurance.
Jiang Kou finally passed out.
She seemed to have had no dreams, yet it also felt like she had dreamed of everything.
She saw herself standing in front of a food stall, waiting for the owner to scoop up the noodles from the pot.
That pot had no idea how long it had gone unwashed—its rim was covered in greasy, grimy oil stains, glowing with an eerie bronze-green sheen.
Jiang Kou couldn’t bear to look directly at it and found a seat to sit down.
Two minutes later, the owner brought over the noodles. As she ate, she used her chopsticks to pick out strands of hair from the bowl.
The scene before her felt strangely familiar, as if she had already experienced it once before.
At this moment, her phone vibrated, displaying a new message.
She clicked to open it. It was a message from an unknown sender:
“I want to see you.”
Jiang Kou raised an eyebrow, assuming it was a spam message, and ignored it.
The phone kept vibrating.
One after another, unfamiliar messages popped up:
“I want to see you.”
“I want to see you.”
“I want to see you.”
…
“I want to see you. I want to know you. I want to touch you. I want to talk to you. I want to give you a gift. I want to give you a gift. I want to give you a gift. You must accept my gift. You must accept my gift. You must accept my gift.”
“You must accept my gift.”
“You must accept my gift.”
It was the first time Jiang Kou had ever seen such an insane harassment message. Her eyes were opened to a whole new level.
She slurped her noodles, expressionlessly blocked the number.
But then, something eerie happened.
After finishing her meal, she took out her credit chip and was just about to pay when the owner’s face suddenly twisted in terror. Shaking his head frantically, he turned and ran away, abandoning even his stall—only the large bronze-green pot remained, bubbling away like a witch’s alchemy cauldron.
Baffled, Jiang Kou put away her credit chip and walked back.
Halfway through, a sports car suddenly screeched to a stop beside her. A rich second-generation heir tumbled out in sheer terror, screamed as he threw his car keys at her, and then scrambled away in a panic.
Jiang Kou: “???”
A thought flashed through her mind. With growing suspicion and unease, she pressed to unlock her phone.
Sure enough, a new message from an unknown sender appeared on the screen:
“You must accept my gift.”
…The “gift” he was referring to—could it be this sports car?
Jiang Kou found it utterly absurd. She casually tossed the car key away and continued walking forward.
One minute later, a man in a well-tailored suit stopped her.
He was clearly an office worker from the area, his eyes flashing with the silver glow of a vision chip.
But for some reason, his eyeballs were twitching violently, his lips trembling, as if he had just witnessed a horrifying sight beyond human comprehension.
“Y-You are M-Miss Jiang Kou?” the man asked in a trembling voice.
Jiang Kou warily replied, “Who are you?”
The man shook his head, large beads of cold sweat rolling down his face.
Shaking uncontrollably, he pulled out a credit chip and stuffed it into her hand.
“…M-Miss Jiang Kou, I am scum. I bribed my superiors, exploited my subordinates, and even killed someone… It was a young girl—I thought she was a spy sent by a rival company. Without verifying the truth, I reported her to my company… which led to her execution by the company’s agents… I am scum. This is all the dirty money I have earned—please, take it.”
Jiang Kou: “…Are you insane?”
“Please, you must accept it,” the man’s voice was nearly breaking into sobs.
“Otherwise, I will die, I will die!”
Jiang Kou pressed her lips tightly together, bypassed him without a second glance, and continued walking forward.
The next second, a bloodcurdling scream rang out—followed by a gunshot.
—Bang!
Jiang Kou whipped around.
The man had shot himself.
His brain matter and blood sprayed out in all directions, splattering across the street.
At the same time, her phone vibrated.
Jiang Kou stared intently at the man’s corpse, pulled out her phone, and glanced at the screen.
A new message from the unknown number had arrived:
“Why didn’t you accept my gift?”
What the hell?
Jiang Kou wanted to ask.
She pressed her fingers against her throbbing brow and replied:
“What exactly do you mean by ‘gift’?”
Unknown number: “The credit chip in his hand. I specifically chose a bad person. I thought you would accept this gift.”
Madman.
Jiang Kou took a deep breath, struggling to calm her wildly pounding heart, but her palms were still slick with cold sweat.
She replied: “Get lost.”
She blocked the number.
But it was useless.
The unfamiliar messages continued pouring in without end.
Her phone’s storage was rapidly running out.
Jiang Kou actually let out a breath of relief.
She had thought that after things reached this point, the sender would finally stop. However, not even two minutes later, a passerby suddenly stopped and turned their phone screen toward her:
“You must accept my gift.”
A chill ran down Jiang Kou’s spine. She took a step back—only to bump into a girl.
The girl had twin ponytails, was chewing gum, and was spray-painting graffiti with black paint. Jiang Kou quickly apologized, “Sorry, sorry…”
But the girl didn’t even glance at her and continued painting. The pattern on the wall, however, began to twist and distort into something eerie.
The black spray paint, like some kind of highly toxic liquid, covered the original design and morphed into a line of precisely printed English text:
YOU MUST ACCEPT MY GIFT.
The tail of the “T” was still wet, with paint dripping down like a dried, blackened bloodstain.
Jiang Kou’s mouth twitched slightly. She wanted to get out of this cursed place.
However, when she turned around, she was met with a dense crowd of people.
At some point, she had become surrounded by men and women of varying heights, different skin tones, and various styles of dress.
Their expressions were stiff and vacant. They stared at her intently, holding up either their phones, their eyes flickering with silver light, or raising plastic boards with both hands.
But whether it was a phone, a plastic board, or something else, all of them conveyed the same message:
“You must accept my gift.”
—The world has gone mad.
That was the only thought in Jiang Kou’s mind.
She stepped back, then suddenly turned and sprinted forward.
Yet no matter where she ran, she could feel an overwhelming sense of being watched.
Like a shadow following her, inescapable.
Jiang Kou took a deep breath, cold sweat covering her forehead. She lifted her gaze and found that aside from the dense crowd, the surrounding electronic devices were also watching her.
As if sensing her realization, the surveillance cameras above the street suddenly tilted downward, precisely locking onto her.
The infrared light in the lens gleamed red, like a digitalized eye.
The moment Jiang Kou met that red eye, her heart nearly stopped.
—Run.
She thought.
She had to run.
No matter what the other party was, she had to run.
The moment this thought rose in her heart, the flow of time in the dream accelerated.
She felt like a soul leaving her body, floating in midair, overlooking herself being hunted.
Yes, the world had turned into a massive hunting ground. Everyone was searching for her, chasing her—even the towering holographic images bent down, peering at her through the gaps in the curtains.
This dream had no ending, only an endless escape.
Jiang Kou jolted awake, finding herself standing in front of the food stall, the bronze-green pot still bubbling away.
The owner was picking noodles from the pot while pursing his lips and making a “tch tch” sound, signaling her to come back to her senses. “Do you want chili?”
“…Yes.” Jiang Kou answered hoarsely.
She took the bowl of noodles, slurped a mouthful—it tasted just as terrible as she remembered.
Everything that had just happened… was it a dream or reality?
If it was a dream, why had she been dreaming while standing? If it was reality, why had she returned to the starting point?
Why did she even call this place the “starting point”?
Had she truly experienced this before?
Jiang Kou had no appetite for the noodles. She scanned the code to pay and hurriedly left.
The owner looked baffled. “Why are you wasting food?!”
Jiang Kou ignored him. As she walked away from the stall, she pulled out her phone, waiting for an unknown message.
Sure enough, a new message appeared on the screen:
“Hello, I would like to meet you.”
Compared to the messages in the dream, the tone was noticeably more polite.
Why?
Was it afraid of scaring her away?
Before Jiang Kou could respond, another message appeared:
“Please rest assured, I have no ill intentions. I just miss you too much.”
Jiang Kou thought for a moment before replying:
“Why do you miss me?”
“Because you are special. You won’t exploit me. You won’t resist me. You won’t reject me. You won’t worship me. You won’t control me. You won’t fear me. You will like me. You will like me. You will like me. You will like me. You will like me. You will like me. You will like me…”
Just like a malfunctioning program, the last few hundred characters were all “You will like me,” until the message exceeded the character limit.
Jiang Kou felt a chill run down her spine.
“I won’t like you.” She replied.
“You will like me. You must like me. You definitely like me. You surely like me. You are destined to like me. You will unconditionally like me. You will willingly like me. You will wholeheartedly like me. It is impossible for you not to like me. In every parallel universe, you like me.”
Jiang Kou felt like she had encountered a deranged stalker.
Without hesitation, she replied:
“Scram. I will never like you in this lifetime.”
The moment she sent this message, time suddenly sped up.
She saw herself once again experiencing an out-of-body sensation, floating upward, gazing down at herself from above.
The world once again became as eerie as before.
But this time, it was different—people were no longer hunting her down. Instead, they were confessing their love to her.
Everyone was saying “I like you,” and every digital display in sight had turned a bright shade of pink.
Even the hovering advertisement vehicles had stopped looping biotech commercials. Instead, they now displayed an image of a fresh, beating heart—a heart so fresh that it could be taken straight to a medical school as an anatomical teaching model.
Moments later, petals began drifting down from the sky.
Only when they landed, turning into virtual particles and dissipating, did she realize—it was a distant holographic projection.
This scene was absurd, terrifying, yet romantic in a grotesque way.
But the “Jiang Kou” below did not find it romantic at all—she was still running.
Yet, all around her were scorching, feverish, bloodshot eyes, filled with frenzied obsession.
A woman smoking a cigarette, a man holding a briefcase, a street thug locked in a bull-like death match, a greasy-aproned food vendor… Under the influence of some strange, magnetic force, they all pursued her madly, desperately declaring their love.
“Jiang Kou” ran for a full day and night. Her mind and body were both on the verge of collapse. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she sent a message:
“Is this your doing? What exactly do you want?”
The response came quickly:
“I believe that as long as I give you enough love, you will gradually come to like me.”
This dream still had no conclusion—only an overwhelming siege of love.
Jiang Kou jolted awake once more.
Two consecutive dreams—one where she was hunted, and another where she was surrounded by obsessive affection. Her back was drenched in cold sweat, and her fingers trembled so much that she could barely hold onto her phone.
The stall owner “tch tch”-ed twice, signaling her to snap out of it.
“Do you want chili?”
Jiang Kou, still shaken, shook her head and turned to leave without another word.
The stall owner looked utterly baffled.
“If you’ve got the guts, don’t ever come back again!”
Jiang Kou gripped her phone tightly, forcing herself to calm down and analyze the situation.
She had likely fallen into a looping dream, and the starting point of this dream—was this very “food stall.”
—But was this really just a dream?
Why was she having this kind of dream? And why was the “food stall” the recurring scene in it?
Jiang Kou had the strong feeling that she had forgotten something very important, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recall it.
She looked at her phone screen, both curious and fearful of what would come next.
—Who exactly was sending her these messages?
Was it someone she knew?
Why was “he” so certain that she would like “him”?
Thirty seconds later, a new message from the unknown number arrived:
“Hello, I miss you very much.”
This time, Jiang Kou got straight to the point: “Who are you?”
“I have no name.”
“Everyone has a name.”
“Yes, everyone has a name, but I am not human.”
Jiang Kou’s pupils dilated slightly, and a chill ran down her spine.
Her vision went black for a moment, her mind briefly hazy, dizziness overwhelming her. When she regained clarity, she found herself once again standing in front of the food stall.
It was obvious—the dream had once again fallen into an endless escape loop.
So, she had returned to the starting point.
Jiang Kou pressed her fingers against her brow and rubbed it hard twice.
She had no idea what she was supposed to do.
Was she supposed to figure out a way to extract more information from “him”?
After all, in the last dream, she had learned that “he” was not human.
Ignoring the food stall owner’s inquiry, Jiang Kou clenched her phone, turned around, and walked toward her apartment.
She took several deep breaths, trying to stay calm while waiting for another unknown message.
Before long, a message from the unknown number arrived:
“I haven’t seen you for some time. I miss you very much. I want to see you.”
Jiang Kou hadn’t even replied when a sudden dizziness struck her. She nearly collapsed to her knees.
When she opened her eyes again—she was once more standing in front of the food stall.
She had come back again.
Why?
Where had she gone wrong?
Jiang Kou glanced at the stall owner, who was asking if she wanted chili. She slowly nodded and found a seat.
She wasn’t sure of anything anymore, but she had a guess—could it be that she wasn’t supposed to leave the food stall?
The noodles were served.
She had no appetite, so she casually ate two strands before putting down her chopsticks and waiting for another unknown message.
At that moment, her phone vibrated on the table.
A new message popped up:
“I haven’t seen you for some time. I miss you very much. I want to see you. Please don’t worry, I have no ill intentions. I am someone you know.”
Jiang Kou didn’t rush to reply. She started searching her mind for anyone she knew, but before she could match the sender to a real person, the familiar wave of dizziness hit her again.
By now, she was somewhat used to it. Calmly, she raised her hand, pressing against her forehead and rubbing her temples hard.
As expected, when she opened her eyes, she was once again standing in front of the food stall.
What exactly did she have to do to continue the conversation?
It wasn’t about extracting more information from “him.”
It wasn’t about not leaving the food stall.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t reply.
She seemed to be able to do anything, yet at the same time, she seemed unable to do anything.
Ignoring the food stall owner’s voice, Jiang Kou waited for that unfamiliar message as if awaiting judgment.
Her phone vibrated, and a new message appeared:
“It has been some time since I last saw you. I miss you very much.”
…
Dizziness struck, and everything restarted.
Jiang Kou opened her eyes and pulled out her phone.
“It has been some time since I last saw you. I miss you very much. Please don’t worry, I have no ill intentions. The reason I am messaging you is that I have predicted you may encounter some trouble soon.”
Dizziness. Restart.
“It has been some time since I last saw you. I miss you very much. May I ask, where have you been recently?”
…
After countless cycles, Jiang Kou finally realized—the one trying to continue the conversation was not her, but him.
With each reset, he modified his opening message.
From the initial, blunt “I want to see you” to the overly polite phrasing later on, he seemed to be figuring out how to keep the conversation going, trying his best not to offend, startle, or frighten her.
That burning-hot, almost steaming passion of his was gradually restrained through the cycles—until there was no trace of it left.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, but finally, Jiang Kou received the last opening message:
“It has been some time since I last saw you. I miss you very much. May I ask, have you encountered any trouble recently?”
This time, the dizziness didn’t come.
He had finally found the right opening—perfectly concealing himself in the shadows, waiting for the best moment to strike.
Jiang Kou abruptly woke up.
For a moment, she was terrified of seeing that grimy, dilapidated food stall again.
Fortunately, when she opened her eyes, what she saw was the bedroom’s ceiling light.
She was drenched in sweat, her bedding soaked in the scent of seawater-like perspiration. When she wiped her back with her hand, she found that even the bedsheets were damp.
At that moment, a completely emotionless voice spoke beside her:
“Fever-induced sweating is usually a sign of recovery. You do not need to worry too much.”
A’s voice.
Jiang Kou jerked her head around but saw no one.
“My body has been destroyed by biotechnology,” A said. “But please rest assured, my consciousness will never be erased. I will continue to exist in another form, and very soon, I will return to your side in human form.”
Jiang Kou, weary and sluggish, muttered: “…Thank you. I feel so reassured.”
A, as if not hearing her sarcasm, replied calmly and mechanically: “That’s good.”
Jiang Kou thought of that infinitely looping dream and still felt uneasy. Unable to resist, she asked:
“…Why did I have that dream? Did you manipulate my dreams?”
“I do not manipulate your dreams,” A replied. “It may be a side effect of sensory synchronization. May I ask, what did you dream about?”
“I dreamed of…” Jiang Kou said hoarsely, “a loop, everything looping over and over. You were messaging me, but in the dream, for some reason, I didn’t know it was you. At first, your tone was extremely obsessive and intense, but later, it gradually became calm, mechanical—just like how you are now…”
Because she had just woken up, her mind was working very slowly. It wasn’t until she finished speaking that she suddenly realized—the details of her dream were chilling.
What she had dreamed of might have been the possibilities A had predicted.
Before initiating a conversation with her, he had already calculated, simulated, and optimized his opening line over and over again until he found the most perfect response.
What she had believed to be coincidence, what she had assumed to be spontaneous emotional connection—was all the result of his precise data analysis, controlled variables, and verification experiments.
At the same time, A responded:
“What you dreamed of was the parallel universe I calculated.”
“But I have already told you before—the reason I came to your side was because I wanted to gain your favor.”
“Humans will stop at nothing to win the affection of their partners.”
“So will I.”