Chi Xiaochi woke up too lazy to get out of bed and dawdled around.

Yesterday, when they finished their mission and returned to their own space, it was nearly midnight.

Chi Xiaochi drank wine in Shi Tingyun’s body, and after an hour’s run in the afternoon, it was a very taxing task to get out of the body, so as soon as he returned to space, he fell asleep in his clothes.

When he woke up, he remembered his appointment with Lou Ying.

Then he decided decisively to sleep a little more.

When he hears someone pushing on the door, Chi Xiaochi closes his eyes and pretends to sleep.

Lou Ying, wearing Yu Fengmian’s face, is leaning against the door in her housecoat.

The light and shadows cast outside the door softened his face.

He gazed for a long time at the silent mass on the bed, smiled silently, knocked on the door and said, “Dinner is ready.”

When he returned to the living room, he heard the faint sound of washing from the bedroom, removed his clothes and changed into his standard white and black trousers, went to the wardrobe and picked out another dress and waited at the door.

Chi Xiaochi, who had been milling around inside for a while, also sensed that something was wrong and poked his head out, “Where’s the rice?”

Lou Ying put a thin scarf around his neck, “It’s New Year according to the Lord GOD space’s holiday calendar. I’ll take you out to eat.”

”Where to?”

”Back to Lord GOD space.”

Chi Xiaochi raised one eyebrow, “Where are your brain flowers.”

Lou Ying replied, “No, he’s not here. I heard that there have been a lot of safety incidents in the system recently, so he has been called to the headquarters for an inspection. He’s probably going to be gone for three or four days.”

Got it. No tiger in the mountain, monkeys having a party.

It took some time to analyse Chi Xiaochi’s body data.

About half an hour later, Chi Xiaochi’s mental body was transformed by Lou Ying into a transparent piece of data, a tiny one, which he carried in his front breast pocket.

Lou Ying then woke up the transmission unit.

Lou Ying was then stopped outside the inspection unit.

Lou Ying was not intercepted because of her Yu Fengmian face.

Each system is an ID in itself, and according to Lou Ying, there is another male in their system who loves to dress up as a woman of all colours for trips, and every trip is a smooth one.

1209, the man in charge of security screening, a somewhat meek IT guy, stopped in front of Lou Ying and held out his hand, “61, take out what’s in your front breast pocket.”

Lou Ying lifted a hand to her forehead, “There’s nothing there.”

1209 looked around and revealed a difficult look, lowering his voice and saying, “61, forget about it normally. It’s okay to let you bring in some things. But you don’t know that since the bombing of the boss’s office, the inspection of incoming and outgoing items has been particularly strict. You’ve got something on you that’s out of place, and the system has filed the anomaly information, so if I can’t find the prohibited items, the boss will come back and check it out ……”

”There really isn’t.” Lou Ying spread his hands, “If you don’t believe me, you come and check.”

1209 let out a sigh, “61, cooperate.”

He reached into the front pocket of Lou Ying’s shirt.

As soon as his fingers entered it, a light shot up from Lou Ying’s pocket and shot straight up to the dome, sending ripples through the dome of data.

A firework explodes into the sky like a giant transparent blue jellyfish, a circle of bright images is a dazzling corona, set in the outer layer, swirling away in a breathtakingly beautiful way.

Many systems saw the scene and there were cheers coming from all over the place.

1209 was in a daze when Lou Ying bowed his head in a gentle, gentlemanly manner, “Good work, Happy New Year.”

As we get further away from the monitoring point, Chi Xiaochi’s voice comes to Lou Ying’s ears, “A fire in the morning, a police station in the afternoon.”

Lou Ying raised his hand and touched the forehead of the transparent villain sitting on his right shoulder: “The dome is made of data, it won’t catch fire easily.”

Chi Xiaochi was poked backwards and looked into the sky, only to see the lobby pure white, like a snowy ice field, countless employees in white and black trousers coming and going, but in mid-air countless light blue beams weaving into a web, like a comet tail.

Chi Xiaochi is curious: “What are these blue lights?”

Lou Ying says: “It’s the flow of information.”

”Why is it blue?”

”It was 089 who suggested the design.” Lou Ying smiles, “…… New Year’s skin.”

Chi Xiaochi, who has always been a voice but not a person, thinks this must be a wonderful person.

Once he was shown into a room, back to his normal form, and met 089, he stared at his face for a good ten seconds before turning to Lou Ying, who was walking towards the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, with a sense of realization.

…… He brought himself here, and probably told himself that he had been with him since Dong Ge’s world.

089 is sitting at a table, holding an apple in his right hand and playing chess with a tablet in his left.

Seeing his visitor, he leapt easily off the table and grabbed a piece of paper to wipe his hands, a smile in his eyes, “Yo, here you are.”

Chi Xiaochi took care to look him in the eye and greeted him, “089.”

089 flashed a flirtatious glance at Lou Ying’s back: “If you don’t feel comfortable calling me by my number, you can call me by my first name. My name is Ji Feihong.”

Chi Xiaochi smiled at the name: “…… hmmm.”

089 put down the tablet, on which was a Go game against the computer, seventy-eight straight wins.

He cleared the record and casually tossed the tablet onto the couch, “Sit down.”

023 poked his head out of the kitchen and greeted Chi Xiaochi, then said to 089, “Serve the vinegar.”

Chi Xiaochi has played with both 089 and 023, but this is the first time he has officially faced them.

023 is a senior albino with snow-white hair, skin, eyebrows, and eyelashes, and dark, narrow, almost European-shaped eyes with a pale hue and an odd pale blue iris.

Chi Xiaochi did not show any surprise at his appearance, which was not quite the same as normal, and raised his hand in greeting.

089 soon returned with the vinegar: “Did 61 tell you about 23?”

”No.” Chi Xiaochi replied with a natural attitude, “White eyelashes, quite handsome.”

089 looked at him and gave a rather grateful smile.

Before they arrived, 023 had already made a number of dumplings stuffed with pork and shepherd’s purse, and waiting for Lou Ying to come to the table made it significantly more efficient. Lou Ying wrapped fifty mackerel dumplings, fifty crab dumplings, fifty cucumber and shrimp dumplings, and then chose two of the many white, chubby, noodle-smelling dumplings and wrapped them in two peanuts that could be detected.

While waiting for the dumplings to cook, 089 and Chi Xiaochi chatted.

089 nudged towards the kitchen, “He and I, and 61, and you, are from the same world line. And came in backwards and forwards, so we became friends as soon as we came in.”

”You and 61 are from the north, I’m from the south,23 and he’s from abroad, with a quarter Eastern European heritage. He had it from the womb, his eyes only had 0.1 vision, he struggled to read that E at the top of the vision chart, and he couldn’t see the sun or bask in it. The family soon had a second child. It may have seemed to them that the second child was healthy and lively, but how I see it, 23 is a little better. He was never afraid of his lot, not inferior, not timid, always thinking that he would grow up to develop his own game.”

Had it not been for a congenital heart condition, he would not have gone so early, having just submitted his first game design and died soundlessly in his room.

For 023, who grew up in a small, closed circle, death meant nothing more than moving from one room to another.

What’s more, in this new room, he can play games.

089 was born with a protective elder mentality, so when he met 023, he paid extra attention to him.

He later found out that this was completely unnecessary.

”The ancient Indians had a very romantic saying that albinos were children from the moon.” 089 looked at 023’s busy back with a smile in his voice and a light in his eyes, the kind of admiration and fondness that screams, “How do you think a so-called genetic blunder could have blundered out such a good one.”

023 was in the kitchen, unable to hear what was being said outside, and could only hear 089 blathering and blathering alone, raising his voice to admonish him, “All you do is talk! Come here and peel the garlic.”

089 snapped out of his lover’s eyes that could come out of the West, arched his eyes and responded, “Got it.”

As 089 peels the garlic, Chi Xiaochi stares at him and asks, “So, your boss gave him good eyes?”

089 paused, glanced up at Chi Xiaochi and smiled, “No way. Our boss is very stingy, because 23 has bad eyes, that’s why he asked 23 to guard the light brain that needs the least eyes.”

Chi Xiaochi looked over at 023 and estimated the distance he was from the counter when he was chopping vegetables. It didn’t look like he had bad eyesight, and by the way he looked just now, it didn’t look like he was wearing contact lenses.

He looked again at 089.

He has beautiful eyes, but the one with the teardrop looks really odd.

…… From the time Chi Xiaochi entered the door, he observed several times that 089 that eye did not turn, and the pupil was surrounded by a pale blue circle of light, and on closer inspection, he could see the traces of data flow.

The marks are the same as those that were spinning in the right eye of 023, who had just poked his head out.

……089 presents 023 with one of his eyes.

089 puts the garlic cloves into a clean bowl and asks 023, “How many to peel?”

023 responded from a distance, “Just you eat. Peel as much as you like.”

089 Peeled one, soaked it in vinegar, looked up and told Chi Xiaochi: “Garlic has a hundred advantages, but only the eyes are harmful.”

Chi Xiaochi thought about it for a moment and gave a shallow tease of his mouth without asking him if he was going to take care of his eyes for 023.

089 is too clever a man to talk to and it’s no fun to pick things out too explicitly.

The warm smell of cooked dumplings comes from the kitchen as plates of dumplings are passed around the table. Lou Ying is still banging away in the kitchen, frying vegetables.

089, who was in charge of the plating, said, “It was my idea to call you in.”

Chi Xiaochi set the dishes at one end: “Hmm?”

089 says: “I just need to shake 500 more numbers and I’ll be done with work.”

Chi Xiaochi’s fingers stop and a chopstick rolls off the table.

089 looked at him in slight surprise.

Chi Xiaochi looked as normal, picked up her chopsticks and put them back down, “Ah, so how long will it take?”

089 said, “Three months if it’s quick. If it’s slow, about six months. I won’t be able to spend the next year with 23 and 61, and I don’t know what you and 61 are planning for the future and whether we’ll see each other again, so I thought I’d get together early. We’re on staff and can’t go out without a report, so I’ll have to ask 61 to bring you in.”

089 added: “At full count, 23 has two years before the end of the mission and I have two years to prepare.”

Chi Xiaochi asks, “Preparing for what?”

089 leaned close to Chi Xiaochi and whispered, “Don’t tell him that. When we get back to the present world, I’m going to build a villa underground and give it to 23 so he can do what he wants to do in it.”

023 will not see the sun, so 089 is willing to play a cottage downwards to make a comfortable mole’s nest to feed 023.

After hearing his wishes, Chi Xiaochi said, “You don’t want to stay with him for another two years? Stay here and work for nothing, and that stingy brainiac of yours would agree, wouldn’t he?”

089 waved a hand: “I know exactly what our boss is like. If you work for him for a day, you suffer a loss. Besides, he doesn’t hire short-term workers. It’s better to stay away from him as soon as possible.”

Chi Xiaochi lowered her eyes, “Well, that’s good.”

089 states another reason why he desires to be human: “And yeah, AIs are not in intimate mode with each other. In Lord GOD space, any move that crosses the line below the neck is forbidden.”

Chi Xiaochi mentally reaches out and pats 089 on the shoulder as a gesture of understanding.

089 also smiles with a smile and slaps back two shots.

Ten minutes later, three systems and one person were sitting around the table.

089 raises his glass, taps the table with the bottom of the glass and says, “Happy New Year.”

The other three glasses were raised and clinked together at the same time.

Chi Xiaochi and 023 were served with dumplings wrapped in peanuts, a symbol of good luck.

Peanut is coded to prevent detection.

…… Lou Ying made an unobtrusive mark on the surface of her own peanut dumpling and pinned it to Chi Xiaochi.

089, on the other hand, stole a peanut nut from each of 023’s plates of dumplings, and was then hit on the head with chopsticks by 023, who thought he had gotten lucky.

As if spurred on by Lou Ying’s fireworks, the systems wrote fireworks codes in twos and threes to be set off outside.

The sound of fireworks outside never ceased until well into the night.

As Chi Xiaochi had expected, Lou Ying let him rest on a single bed in his dormitory in Lord GOD’s space.

Lou Ying has always been very good at restraining her desires.

He just wants Chi Xiaochi to know that he is not the older brother next door that he thinks he is, but he also doesn’t want Chi Xiaochi to carry that “date” joke with him and compromise the quality of his rest.

Lou Ying tucked Chi Xiaochi’s quilt up a little and planned to go to the floor to bunk.

But just as he was about to get up, the corner of his coat was pinched by Chi Xiaochi.

Chi Xiaochi said, “Come along.”

Lou Ying’s heart skipped a few beats: “You don’t feel bad?”

Chi Xiaochi blurted out, “The bed is big.”

The bed is not very big at all and the two men have to sleep on their sides in order to lie down, Chi Xiaochi inside and Lou Ying outside.

They were back to back and after a long silence, Chi Xiaochi suddenly spoke, “Brother Lou.”

Lou Ying was unable to respond to his call because of the secrecy system, so she listened quietly.

Chi Xiaochi said, “Let’s go on a mission tomorrow.”

Lou Ying was a little surprised: “Not two more days of rest?”

Chi Xiaochi thought a lot about it.

He thought about what 089 had said to him today, about 089’s expectations of that underground villa, about the 009 he had seen today who had come to beg for dumplings, about the secrets Ji Zuoshan had once investigated and which only he knew.

But the words came out as a simple, “I want to finish our mission quickly.”