Chapter 174 - System vs. System (24): Favor, conspiracy, a foolish person
Translator: kiribold
editor: yoantlers
The world line channel had been opened from the inside by 061, and Ji Zuoshan forced open the closed door for him.
Therefore, when 061 opened his eyes again, he had returned to the Valley of Lost b.u.t.terflies, where he was taken away.
The Evil Jiao in the mountain had perished, and the little snakes she bred also fled when the people of Jingxu Peak searched the valley from top to bottom.
The mist in the mountains had dissipated now, and it was empty except for dead branches and leaves. They could only wait for time to heal the wounds left by the evil spirit one by one.
061 supported himself on a tree, barely stood still, and raised his hand to his temple. He called for data but was pierced by a chaotic electronic beeping sound that made him frown.
The signal he managed to release was extremely weak, and he couldn’t connect with Chi Xiaochi or even return to the Lord G.o.d’s s.p.a.ce.
However, the advantages and disadvantages were relative. The Lord G.o.d also couldn’t monitor his movements; naturally, he wouldn’t know about Ji Zuoshan’s existence.
Ji Zuoshan’s energy manifestation floated around him in circles. He was anxious and helpless. “Liu-laoshi, are you alright?”
The electrical injury originated from inside 061’s body and was data-level damage.
Although Ji Zuoshan’s mental power was strong, most of it worked on himself.
In other words, he knew how to destroy things effectively but didn’t know how to heal others.
061 didn’t ask for anything. He said “Thank you,” wiped the blood overflowing from the corner of his mouth, sat against the tree, and rested temporarily.
Ji Zuoshan felt a little guilty. “I didn’t help much.”
061 smiled. “You’re still so polite.”
Ji Zuoshan originally had a shy nature and didn’t like to talk much. He didn’t want to waste 061’s energy, so he simply quietly floated behind him, pretending to be a lamp.
061 closed his eyes, rested for a while, and suddenly asked, “That day, the day the Lord G.o.d s.p.a.ce was destroyed, you didn’t come, right?”
“No.” Ji Zuoshan said, “It was the three of them, Rosie, Xiao w.a.n.g, and Zhan Yanchao.”
061 smiled lightly. “Hmm. I thought of it. You wouldn’t be the kind of person to casually hurt people.”
Ji Zuoshan was even more surprised than 061. “Huh? Who hurt someone? Zhan Yanchao?”
061 shook his head, expressing that he didn’t know. “How did they find the Lord G.o.d s.p.a.ce?”
Ji Zuoshan was a little embarra.s.sed. “They ah…”
…
At this moment, in the Lord G.o.d’s s.p.a.ce, the “In Between Moments.”
089 stood in front of the Lord G.o.d with a smile and said thoughtlessly, “Boss, what do you want me to do?”
The Lord G.o.d said, “You seem to be in good spirits. You’ve almost recovered from your injuries. You’ve worked hard.”
089 opened his mouth. “Boss, don’t just encourage me verbally, ah. For the sake of my work-related injury, raise my salary.”
The Lord G.o.d: “…”
He decided not to give 089 more opportunities to play around.
He didn’t want to learn any more about 089’s broken mouth skill.
The Lord G.o.d asked, “Did you see the intruder that day?”
089 shook his head. “No.”
“Did you see what weapons they used to hurt you?”
089 let out a cheerful laugh. “Boss, you’re funny. I didn’t even see anyone.”
“But you were injured from the front.”
089 said, “Boss, I couldn’t see them, but they could see me, ah. A nine-yin white bone claw came up and cut a hole into me. What tricks could I have? Would’ve you say so? Right.”
…This self-questioning and self-answering were suffocating.
The Lord G.o.d’s patience ran out, and he ended the conversation early. “Okay. You’re just healing up. Go back and rest early.”
089’s chatterbox mouth was closed as soon as it opened with an unfulfilled expression on his face. Before closing the door and leaving, he blew a coquettish kiss at the Lord G.o.d.
After he left, the Lord G.o.d asked the AI, “…How was the inspection?”
“He didn’t lie.” The AI who had sneaked into the 089 memory system reported truthfully. “His memory was cut off when he was startled by a loud noise behind him, and he turned around. The next thing you know, it went black. Please be a.s.sured that he’s not hiding anything.”
The Lord G.o.d smiled. “Just in case. Stupid people like him, there’s no need to care too much. What is most feared is those who are smart, like that 061…he’s been controlled by the other party’s system, right?”
The AI rechecked it and confirmed it was correct before saying, “Yes. His signal is almost undetectable.”
The Lord G.o.d couldn’t contain his joy. “Okay. This time will help him remember his place a little better, which is also a good thing.”
089 went back to the dormitory. He was bored and casually opened his snack drawer. He picked out a packet of unsealed caramel cookies and a book from the bookshelf. He picked the cookies out of the bag piece by piece and ate them while reading. The crumbs of the cookies fell from the sides of his mouth.
023 came out of the bathroom with a mop, took one look at his appearance, and exploded with anger. “I just swept the floor!”
089 bowed his head. “Aiyo,” he hurriedly apologized, “Sorry, sorry, ha.”
023’s cheeks were round with anger, and he turned around to get the broom and sweep again.
When pa.s.sing by 089’s side, he barked, “Feet!”
089 obediently lifted his feet and handed him the bag of cookies. “Want some?”
023 took the dustpan and broom back to the bathroom and said with disdain, “Sweet and greasy.”
089: “It’s delicious.”
023: “You’re the only one in the whole system who likes to eat this kind of cookie. Even 009 doesn’t eat them. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, sooner or later you’ll get diabetes. You’ll be honest with three shots of insulin a day.”
089 bit into the cookie, vaguely saying, “I want to use my brain. I have to eat something sweet to make up for it.”
023 replied from afar, “Your brain is going to be sticky with syrup.”
089 smiled, stuck his hand into the cookie bag, and fished out the following cookie.
But this cookie covered in thick, rich caramel was slightly different.
Written on the cookie in the white chocolate sauce were a few words he didn’t know how to interpret. “Trust it. Import it.”
089 read these four words for a while, his expression unmoved. He crunched the cookies he had eaten before reaching into the bag.
Before touching the next cookie, his fingertips came across a miniature memory drive.
089 clamped the memory drive with his fingers but was in no rush to take it out. He tapped it like a chess piece at the bottom of the box as if weighing whether the memory was trustworthy.
It took him twenty seconds to decide before 023 walked out of the bathroom.
089 took out the memory drive, pairing it with access to the consciousness of his brain.
In a flash, 20 minutes of new memories flooded into his mind.
…It was his memory from the night of the incident.
After receiving the summons from the Lord G.o.d, he copied the memory and put it into this memory drive. He immediately took matters into his own hands. He completely emptied the memories related to everything he saw that day, and finally put the memory in this bag of caramel cookies that only he would eat. Then he wrote a reminder with white chocolate sauce to remind himself to remember to retrieve the memories when he returned.
After all, the best way to cover up the truth is to forget it.
The 20 minutes of information was not very large for the system. When 023 came out with a mop, 089 had even changed his book and laid on his back on the bed. He held the book with one hand, rested one hand behind his head, and pompously crossed his legs Erlang style, just like a wicked landlady.
…Looking at him like this, 023 wanted to slap the mop on his face.
But the other party was still half injured, so he could only think about it.
And 089, reading a book, recalled the night when the three spiritual bodies invaded.
Before everything happened, 089 was sitting in the duty room. He ate a matcha mille crepe cake while publicly playing a dog blood series.
When the sister hissed tearfully to the heroine why she wanted to steal her male lead, three transparent energy apparitions appeared behind him.
The three energy bodies looked at each other. The tallest young man stretched his neck from side to side, silently approaching him, intending to hold him hostage and ask for some information.
089 turned his back to them, put the last piece of cake into his mouth, licked the cream off his fork, and said kindly as if greeting an old friend, “You’re here.”
The person who was preparing a surprise attack was startled in turn.
“I can’t believe I’ve gotten caught up with you. I don’t know if my luck is good or bad.”
089 turned around on his swivel chair as if he wasn’t surprised by their arrival.
He counted the number of energy bodies present. “Huh? More people came than I thought. I thought that at most two could be sent in at a time. It’s good, now we can make a mahjong table.”
With that, he waved his hand, adding an extra layer of protection and soundproofing to the duty room.
His series of words and actions puzzled the three of them.
The young man planning to attack him suspiciously asked, “You know us?”
089 mused, “Something like that.”
The young man’s tone suddenly became emotional, and he seemed to want to rush up to grab him by his lapels, “You’re that 061?!”
089 pressed his palm down. “Hey, hey, don’t guess, I know you, but you don’t know me. Instead of wasting time on guessing, let’s all save each other time…”
He grazed his eyes over the three of them and chose one, a spiritual energy body whose face couldn’t be seen but whose figure could be judged to be female. “I might be able to help you get what you want…Rosie.”
The tall woman who hadn’t said a word was startled. “How do you know my name?”
089 laughed, “I know a lot. I also know that the person who invaded a few days ago was called Ji Zuoshan.”
The three were silent for a moment.
w.a.n.g Xizhou, who came to trash the place with them, obviously didn’t expect such a situation and couldn’t help but glance at Rosie from the corner of his eye.
At this point, Rosie’s heart had settled down.
She had been tempered by the army for a long time, and she had been on the battlefield, so she had a great mind to judge this situation.
“Did 061 tell you?”
“He hasn’t been back for a long time. He doesn’t know about the intruder.”
“You knew that Ji Zuoshan had been here but didn’t tell anyone. Why??
“Well…”
089 pressed his temples as if he was remembering seriously, but his eyes were fixed on Rosie.
Under the soft, warm light, his light brown pupil color and the tear mole at the end of his eyes were particularly striking.
He spoke slowly to the unfamiliar people, automatically cutting out a lot of trash talk that interfered with his audiovisual senses, so his usual lazy chatter was swept away, and his logic was quite clear.
“After the intruder entered the Lord G.o.d s.p.a.ce, he didn’t go anywhere. He directly entered the archive room. The purpose was too clear. After the inventory, none of the archives on the shelf were missing. The intruder should have had enough time to take any of the files with him, but he didn’t, which proves he didn’t come to steal.
“The alarm went off for nearly 30 seconds after the security system detected his presence before it was disarmed. But why did the intruder stay for another 30 seconds after he was discovered? Obviously he had the ability to leave as soon as the alarm sounded.
“There was a deep handprint on the side of the fallen cabinet. Of course, our security system has a strong signal transmission ability. He should have been in a lot of pain at that point, but not only did he not leave in a hurry, he stayed for a full half a minute, and he overturned the cabinet.
“I wondered if he was in the middle of looking at a file when he was discovered and wanted to put the file back. But because of the security system, he couldn’t do it, so he had to push the shelf down.
“After all, the best way to hide a leaf is to keep it hidden in the forest.
“On the fallen shelf, all the paper files added up to a total of 375. I took the opportunity to confirm them one by one when I was helping No. 339 in the archives. Later, I came to the conclusion that among all the people, only 061 brought out a monster like Ji Zuoshan. A monster capable of infiltrating our system alone.”
Before Rosie could ask, 089 squinted and smiled, “Because my lover is a bit gossipy, I know that Ji Zuoshan has some good friends, such as you, Rosie, so I thought that after Ji Zuoshan’s failure, you might come again. But you can be rest a.s.sured that after I found 061’s file in the files in the ground, I guessed something was wrong. I took my own file as a subst.i.tute instead, and put his file on my shelf. When No.339 reported the names of the 375 list of files, 061’s name wasn’t on it, so you don’t have to worry about our boss a.s.sociating it to Ji Zuoshan.”
After saying so many words in one breath, 089 stared at Rosie with a smile. “I have already shown my sincerity. What about Miss Rosie?”
“We’re here for two purposes.” 089 spoke slowly and clearly, leaving enough time for Rosie to think. Rosie returned the exchange with great sincerity. “First, we want to understand what that 061 does. Second, we have to do some damage here, which is a kind of revenge. Which of these can you help us with?”
089 whistled. “Neither one is hard. But you have to be careful. Our boss has a bad temper. If he knew where you guys came from, he might have to screw you even at the cost of all his blood money. I think the last time Ji Zuoshan went back, the situation wasn’t very good.”
Hearing this, Zhan Yanchao secretly clenched his fist.
Rosie, on the other hand, sighed softly.
Little Ji was the war G.o.d of the entire planet. A few days ago, he suddenly vomited blood and fainted in the dormitory, which caused panic within the military. Fortunately, the news was suppressed in time, and no further riots were caused.
The examination result was that his spiritual power suffered a severe setback for an unknown reason.
The military doctor was at a loss, while Ji Zuoshan was in a coma and kept sleeptalking and saying strange things.
…061, 061, file, put it back.
At first, Rosie and the others thought he was seriously injured and just talking nonsense, but the more they heard it, the more wrong it became.
That 061 seemed to be a person?
Rosie conducted a test, and without much effort, she located a teleportation channel in Ji Zuoshan’s spiritual power.
This place should be the place that caused his injury.
Rosie and the others didn’t know the origins of Ji Zuoshan and 061’s relationship, so naturally, they wouldn’t a.s.sociate this with a hundred-page story of repayment.
The military mindset made them suspect that this “Lord G.o.d s.p.a.ce” was a strange alien s.p.a.ce that would affect the safety of their planet. Ji Zuoshan went to investigate the situation privately but was injured by the people there.
So they decided to come and go without being rude..
With the marked teleportation channel, Rosie used the entire Alpha army, plus herself, w.a.n.g Xiezhou, and Zhan Yanchao, whose spiritual level was considered superior among the Alphas, to open a channel and travel thousands of miles, jumping several dimensions to seek revenge.
089 naturally wouldn’t tell Rosie what 061 had done.
Otherwise, if the surnamed Zhan went crazy on the spot, he might be unable to hold him back.
089 downplayed it. “061, like you, is Ji Zuoshan’s friend. When Ji Zuoshan wakes up, you can ask him. But I don’t recommend you go to the archives to find 061-related materials. After Ji Zuoshan came in last time, the monitoring of the archives became stricter than in other places.”
Rosie weighed her options and nodded happily. “Then we only have one thing left to do.”
089 gave another suggestion. “I suggest you not hurt people. Burn down the archive room. If you really can’t relieve your anger, our boss’s room is called ‘In Between Moments.’ Go out and turn right 300 meters. Don’t beat him in person. He has high authority, thick skin, and can’t be beaten.”
w.a.n.g Xizhou listened in a daze.
He felt this person was simply the legendary gold sellout teammate.
What the h.e.l.l was he trying to do?
Zhan Yanchao also had the same concern. “Why are you helping us like this?”
“‘Help’ is a nicer way of saying it.” 089 laughed. “To be precise, our relationship is a cooperation of mutual interests.”
Rosie pressed down on Zhan Yanchao’s shoulder and motioned him to be quiet. “How so?”
089 spread his hands. “I explained so much to you and gave you so many pointers. Don’t you think you owe me a favor?”
Rosie said, “What do you want us to do in return?”
“Simple.” 089 said, “You just do one thing for me.”
“What is it?”
“I haven’t thought of it yet.”
Zhan Yanchao was not an easily convinced personality, so he asked, “So you’re telling me that if you can’t think of it, we’ll be in your debt the whole time, always to your beck and call?”
089 thought for a while. “There’s nothing wrong with you saying that.”
“You—”
089 put his finger across his lips. “Shh.”
He removed the data barrier outside the room and lowered his voice. “It’s okay if you don’t agree. I’ll call someone.”
Zhan Yanchao had never seen such a brazen person who turned his face faster than a book, and his jaw dropped for a moment.
Rosie asked, “Aren’t you afraid of being exposed?”
“I’m afraid. But I’m only one person, and you are three. Oh, plus Ji Zuoshan from last time. If our boss finds out, you probably won’t have a good time.”
089’s fingers gently stroked the tear mole at the end of his eye. “Your planet has finally regained peace. If you fall into a state of war again, a lot of things will be difficult.”
In just a few short sentences of bluffing and threatening, he kidnapped a planet by making a bid on the ground and using an entire planet as a bargaining chip.
Zhan Yanchao: “…f.u.c.k. Rosie, let’s just kill him.”
Rosie had a bit of a headache. “Deputy Zhan, go out with Xiao w.a.n.g to check the situation and be careful.”
Zhan Yanchao reluctantly went out.
Rosie untied the red ta.s.sel of the mecha key around her waist. She took apart the fine knot, divided it in half, and directly handed it to 089. “This pendant has been with me for more than ten years, and it has absorbed a lot of Naman metal radiation, equivalent to a small sensor and radiator. When there is a need, press it twice in a row, and there will be a slight induction generated on my side. But let me explain in advance that this favor is not owed to you by me, it is owed by Ji Zuoshan. When I return, I’ll give this to him. If 061 is really your friend, it’s nothing to let him owe you a favor. But if you lied, then our partnership will be dissolved. Can you accept that?”
089 took the red ta.s.sel and laughed. “You think too much. I didn’t plan to keep this opportunity for myself. For the sake of my own safety, I won’t see you again. I’ll transfer this favor to our family’s 061, and please give this to Ji Zuoshan. I hope you can give him a hand when he needs it.”
Rosie couldn’t hide her appreciation and praised, “You are very smart.”
“Thank you.” 089 smiled and said, “It’s rare for someone to compliment me like that.”
This answer surprised Rosie a little. “Really.”
089 didn’t seem to care. “It’s not easy to raise a family, so it’s good for everyone to be a little less sharp.”
Rosie said, “But have you considered that if we leave, you, the person on duty, will be held responsible.”
089 said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of myself.”
Next, the Lord G.o.d’s s.p.a.ce was unsurprisingly chaotic. The sounds of fires starting, doors smashing, and fire alarms being activated…
And Rosie and the others had already erased the traces of their presence and retreated.
And 089 has to arrange an alternate path for himself.
He sat back in his chair, biting down on his tie, and clenched his left hand into a fist against his right collarbone, adjusting the angle to make sure the wound looked like someone taller than him had struck him.
He breathed a soft sigh of relief, moved his fingers around, and sighed to himself, “…It’s not easy to raise a family.”
The next second, a ‘damage’ command overflowed between his fingers, instantly smashing the bones of his shoulder into pieces.
He didn’t make a sound and followed the momentum of the command’s impact, falling back to the ground and rolling a few times viciously.
089 released his mouth, biting his tie, and vomited a mouthful of blood.
This wound could be exchanged for not being noticed by the Lord G.o.d, for ensuring the 023 closest to him’s safety, for continuing to be a happy salted fish, for exchanging a favor for 061, and for 023 to take care of him.
An excellent deal.
Not being smart is indeed a good thing in exchange for a lot of benefits and a little affection, isn’t it?