Chapter 10 - Genius Cannonfodder’s Counterattack Record (10)
Ch10 – Genius Cannonfodder’s Counterattack Record (10)
Yang Baihua hesitated for quite a while, “Mister Lou?”
“Yes. Mister Yang, would you like to come in and take a seat?”
061 wasn’t clear on his own appearance so naturally he didn’t have any reaction, but this kind of tranquility and calmness, in Yang Baihua’s eyes, took on a slightly different meaning.
……He seemed to have been aware of his existence since a long time ago, and so he wasn’t at all surprised by how similar the two of them looked.
But Yang Baihua didn’t know anything about the person standing in front of him.
Yang Baihua wasn’t one who tended to think too much, but that face made it impossible for him to not overthink.
061 invited Yang Baihua into the house and informed him, “Xiao Yuan’s out right now. You can just wait a while for him here.”
“I have something going on so I can only stay here for a bit before I have to leave.”
“In a hurry? ……Would you like some alcohol, or just tea?”
“Plain water is fine.”
061 smiled slightly, “That isn’t the proper way to treat a guest. I’ll prepare some tea.”
The apartment had a traditional tea set which had been bought back by Cheng Jian, but because preparing tea was too cumbersome, it probably had only been used two or three times before Cheng Jian abandoned it in a cabinet.
061 took out the tea set and a box of high-quality Phoenix Oolong tea leaves, started the fire, fanned the flames of the stove, then heated up the teapot, his actions graceful and relaxed, showing his calm, unhurried heart.
He’d been through hundreds of worlds, so this bit of acting was no problem for him.
061 asked, “What are you looking for Xiao Yuan for?”
Yang Baihua snapped out of his daze, “En?”
This person in front of him looked very similar to himself, but his every feature perfectly surpassed his own, whether it was his nose, eyes, height, or legs. This did not even include his clean temperament that made it clear from a glance that he’d been tenderly raised by a good family.
This feeling was both strange and stifling.
061 didn’t know what he was thinking and couldn’t be bothered to guess, simply repeating his question.
Yang Baihua didn’t answer, merely replying with another question, “Where did Xiao Cheng go?”
061 said, “I don’t know.”
Yang Baihua said, “He is living at your place, but you don’t know where he went?”
061 calmly replied, “I’m his friend. Not his guardian, nor his prison warden.”
Yang Baihua suddenly became suspicious.
He questioned doubtfully, “Did Xiao Cheng say something to you?”
Could it be that Cheng Yuan complained about him? Said that he watched him too closely?
But he did it for Cheng Yuan’s own good.
When Cheng Yuan’s older brother, Cheng Jian, wasn’t beating him up, he was scolding him, simply not treating him at all like a brother. If he didn’t want Cheng Yuan to interact with him too often, was that wrong?
Cheng Yuan’s friends were all utterly dissatisfied with him in every way. If he told Cheng Yuan to stay away from them, was that wrong?
Other than music, Cheng Yuan didn’t know anything. Even when just buying vegetables, when the vegetable seller would haggle with him for price that was two or three mao higher, he would just smile happily and accept the price without question. If he told him to just stay at home and not run around outside, was that wrong?
While Yang Baihua’s thoughts were running wild, 061 was as immovable as a mountain.
061 had travelled extensively, operated a mecha, battled zombies, and grown used to all kinds of scum, so at this moment his attitude was extremely calm.
His movements didn’t falter. He smiled and said, “He hasn’t said anything to me. You should trust him.”
Other than this, he didn’t say another word of explanation, but if Yang Baihua tried to ask any further, it would seem as if he had no class.
Yang Baihua forcibly suppressed his inexplicable irritation, “When is he coming back?”
“We’re alright.”
061 pulled up a memory fragment from his vast sea of data and added, “When we were younger, he made a bet with me, saying that the person who lost would have to go out in a skirt for a day. Afterwards, he lost.”
As he thought of that incident, the corners of his mouth unconsciously curled up in a smile.
When putting on the skirt, that person had been very bold and totally unconcerned, but about fifteen minutes after he left the house, he became embarrassed, his face bright red as he clutched at the hem of the short skirt, unwilling to walk another step no matter what as he was scared of bumping into someone they knew.
In the end, 061 had to carry him home.
The entire trip back, he buried his face into 061’s back, too embarrassed to raise his head.
Every time 061 entered this memory, he always wanted to clearly see that person’s face. However, with the reformatting, that person’s exact image had been shattered into broken fragments.
Noticing 061’s faint, nostalgic smile, Yang Baihua clenched his back teeth for two seconds before relaxing.
……It seemed like they really were quite close.
Fortunately, he was very good at controlling his emotions, “Thank you for taking care of Xiao Cheng for the past two days. It’s really a pity that I didn’t get to know you before.”
061 put his mind back on track. He handed a cup of tea over to Yang Baihua and followed the ridiculous backstory Chi Xiaochi had casually made up, “I’ve been abroad for a long time. It’s only natural that we haven’t met before.”
Yang Baihua brought the teacup to his mouth and gently blew on it, “But I’ve never seen Xiao Cheng contact you or heard him mention you before. So when I heard he was going over to your place to stay, I was really surprised.”
……His words were barbed.
061 started to understand what he was thinking.
If Yang Baihua had always been subtly influencing Cheng Yuan like this, cutting him off from his friend circle and making him into a doll that belonged to him and him alone, then it was no wonder that in his most difficult moments, Cheng Yuan couldn’t find even a single bosom friend with whom he could share his troubles.
061 rested his elbow on the armrest of the armchair, let out a smile as fresh as the spring breeze, and gave him a response filled with hidden meaning, “There’s no need to be surprised, all our associations were private.”
Yang Baihua choked on a mouthful of tea.
Approximately fifteen minutes later.
Sitting in a shopping mall lounge chair and playing a mobile shooting game, Chi Xiaochi heard a soft, drawn-out sigh in his brain.
Chi Xiaochi put down his phone, “You got him to leave?”
061, “He’s gone.”
Chi Xiaochi, “It was effective?”
061 carefully thought back for a moment, then truthfully conveyed, “When he left, his face was green.”
Chi Xiaochi sighed contentedly, “Ah, no wonder he called me six times just now.”
061, “Did you pick up? What did he say?”
Chi Xiaochi, “My phone kept vibrating, affecting my gameplay, so I put the phone on mute.”
061, “……” Okay then.
Before his words fell, Chi Xiaochi slapped his thigh regretfully, “Aiya, if I had known beforehand, I’d have asked you to record your conversation.”
061 smiled, “Do you want to see it?”
He uploaded a recorded video to the shared digital display. “You’re welcome.”
Chi Xiaochi said affectionately, “Liuliu, you’re the best.”
061, “……”
Fine, Liuliu it is, Liuliu sounds very nice.
Chi Xiaochi began to study the report 061 sent from the scene.
061 noticed that while Chi Xiaochi was excitedly watching the video, he was breathing into his cupped hands.
Cheng Yuan’s body couldn’t take the cold. Although the department store had heating, his palms were still cold.
Chi Xiaochi didn’t care too much about this, but as a system, 061 felt that he should be more conscious of serving his host.
He adjusted and revised Chi Xiaochi’s internal temperature system, and in passing, recombined a series of data streams.
Soon, an open thermos of tea, still piping hot, appeared in Chi Xiaochi’s right hand. The rich fragrance of tea filled his senses.
Chi Xiaochi, “……Where did you get this from?”
“I made it at home. If I first digitised the tea cup, then restore it, I can bring it here. It wasn’t too difficult,” 061 explained, “This Phoenix Oolong is authentic, but he didn’t take more than two sips and wasting it would be such a pity. Also, this kind of tea is good for your liver and eyes, and since you have problems sleeping, drinking more of this kind of tea is good for your health.”
Chi Xiaochi remained silent.
061 took it as him being moved, and kindly didn’t say anything else, instead turning his attention to the current point levels on the digital display.
The goodwill level kept jumping between 75 to 55 points, incredibly unstable.
061 thought, understandable.
After all, Yang Baihua constantly had the “First Love” halo over his head and Cheng Yuan would always obediently obey his every word, so he naturally thought of him as an object in the center of his palm that was his to mess around with and manipulate at his will.
Now, a strong enemy with a “Childhood Friend” halo had suddenly appeared out of the blue and Yang Baihua’s feelings towards Cheng Yuan weren’t entirely fake, so naturally he would feel a sense of crisis. Hence, the constantly fluctuating goodwill level wasn’t surprising.
But the regret level, the key to accomplishing the task, remained in the pitiful single-digits.
061 was a little worried.
So he decided to watch some of Chi Xiaochi’s variety shows to calm himself down.
He watched the variety shows, Chi Xiaochi watched the video, and the system and host were in perfect harmony.
Chi Xiaochi held the cup of tea, taking the occasional sip as he watched the show, but his thoughts were still revolving around that sentence he heard.
“When we were younger, he made a bet and lost, and had to accompany me for a day outside in a skirt.”
Chi Xiaochi shrugged to himself, It seems like their investigation on me was really thorough, since they even dug up what Lou-ge and I did together when we were younger.
But this couldn’t be considered anything serious, so Chi Xiaochi didn’t bother questioning the system about it.
Chi Xiaochi studied this precious data with great interest.
The video was shot from 061’s perspective, with the cameras being 061’s eyes. The recording started from when Yang Baihua rang the doorbell.
From this angle, Chi Xiaochi judged that the body 061 materialised was at least 5 or 6 centimeters taller than Yang Baihua.
Even though he couldn’t see his appearance, 061’s bearing was rather graceful. After making Yang Baihua choke on his drink, 061 also engaged in a discussion with him about software engineering.
Obviously, in the field of specialized knowledge, Yang Baihua’s human brain had no way of competing with 061’s huge database of knowledge that he accumulated over many years.
It could only be said that Yang Baihua tried his best.
Like 061 had said, when Yang Baihua left, his face was indeed spinach-coloured.
Chi Xiaochi decided to save this video to watch whenever he was bored. It would definitely never fail to amuse him.
After Yang Baihua rushed home, his parents were still asleep, so he was met with thunderous snoring originating from the bedroom.
His third sister had taken her children out to play with her sisters working in the city. Xiaoyan had been busy these past two days and so she also wasn’t home to accompany him.
Yang Baihua, feeling a full on manic depression, tried to call Cheng Yuan again.
On his end, Chi Xiaochi was engrossed in watching the video and didn’t pay him any attention.
Yang Baihua paced several rounds around the living room like a caged beast. The more he looked at his fifty square meter rental apartment, the more he found it displeasing to the eye. When he turned and his gaze landed on the floor-length mirror, he saw the human figure reflected in it and erupted in fury, snatching the sofa cushion and ferociously throwing it at the wall.
Didn’t Cheng Yuan say he was his first love? Then what was up with that surnamed Lou?
If he was only a simple childhood friend, Yang Baihua might not have thought too much about it, but that face? That face!
According to what surnamed Lou had said, he had left the country when Xiao Cheng was fourteen, and since then they hadn’t met, at most keeping in contact through the phone and video calls.
But after having met him, why was it that Xiao Cheng had never once mentioned that person? That was too strange.
Was he intentionally hiding something?
Was he intentionally looking for someone’s shadow in him?
The more Yang Baihua thought about it, the more aggrieved he became.
If Cheng Yuan hadn’t appeared, chased after him, and bent him, he might have already married a city girl by now, like a normal person. Why would he have to tremble in the face of his parents?
How could Cheng Yuan treat him like this?
His thoughts were in a whirl. He trembled with anger as he wrote and rewrote a text message questioning Cheng Yuan, eventually just sending a text reading “Why aren’t you answering the phone”.
He wanted to see how Cheng Yuan was going to explain this!
After staring at his cell phone for about three hours, he finally received a reply: “Sorry, sorry Old Yang, I was out playing with my friends and wasn’t paying attention to my phone.”
This explanation wasn’t enough to satisfy Yang Baihua.
Just as he was about to start interrogating Cheng Yuan, his mother said, “You’ve stared at your phone for a whole afternoon now, don’t always look at that thing all the time. There’s radiation, and you’ll hurt your eyes.”
Yang Baihua listened to her, simply leaving his phone to the side intending to ignore Cheng Yuan for a while.
Cheng Yuan wasn’t someone who could keep his calm, so if he didn’t receive a reply he definitely wouldn’t be able to resist taking the initiative to contact him.
Who knew that even up till late at night, as he laid in bed and stared at his phone, he still didn’t see any response from Cheng Yuan.
Yang Baihua gritted his teeth and sent, “Why didn’t you call me back?”
The text that was sent out disappeared like a clay ox entering the sea. Yang Baihua fell asleep, still clutching his mobile phone.
It wasn’t until he was eating breakfast the next morning that his cell phone buzzed with a reply. Cheng Yuan’s response was perfunctory, “I thought you didn’t get my text.”
Yang Baihua almost snapped his chopsticks in half.
When his parents went back to the village, he definitely needed to have a good talk with Cheng Yuan!
Since Yang Baihua wanted to ignore him, Chi Xiaochi didn’t mind playing a little game of time difference with him.
But after he sent out the new text message, Yang Baihua didn’t reply.
Having lost a “harassment target” x1, Chi Xiaochi felt as lonely as snow.
However, two days later, Chi Xiaochi’s proper business found its way to his door.
He received a phone call from an unfamiliar number.
“May I ask if this is Mister Cheng?” The person calling asked, “I’m an employee of Xingyun Entertainment. It’s like this, we’ve received the demos you sent. May I confirm that the songs in the demos you sent are all your original works?”
Chi Xiaochi calmly answered, “Yes.”
“Then may I ask if you, sir, would be free to come by the Xingyuan Entertainment Office at 18 Jinsong Road, East District Three, at 9am this Friday? We’d like to assess your music.”