"Theoretically, there was no way to reply to any emails sent by an electronic life-form. The email address would be invalid, so any reply would naturally vanish without a trace. But that was only from a human perspective. For an electronic life-form capable of roaming the internet, whether an email was actually delivered anywhere did not matter. Even if you typed a reply into the field, it might be able to see it."
Standing before the whiteboard, Schiller tapped it with his pen and said, "So all you need to do is reply to its message. You do not need any sophisticated flirting skills. Just say anything, as long as it feels that you are responding."
"I just want to know, if it harassed so many red-haired women like you said, did not a single one reply?" Lena was clearly puzzled.
"It happened to harass people who would never respond to harassment," Schiller said. "It is a paradox. When selecting targets, it does not want lovestruck fools. But people who are not lovestruck fools do not fall in love easily. Even if an electronic life-form staged some damsel-in-distress scenario, the other person could still think calmly, realize it might be a conspiracy, and stay far away. That has already happened."
"Then if I reply to it voluntarily, will it think I do not meet its standards?"
"That is why I said not to flirt with it. You can approach it from the angle of mutual benefit and ask to cooperate. Given your current circumstances, that would be a perfectly reasonable request."
"You mean the conflict between my brother and me? But our relationship was never that good to begin with. He cannot really do much to me."
"Then make the relationship worse," Schiller said. "I do not believe Lex Luthor