Lu Xing returned to Earth. Seeing the unfamiliar hotel room, he froze for a moment before remembering that he had moved out to live on his own.
He had lived alone amid ice and snow for ten days. Returning to the modern world gave him a distinct sense of having crossed into another lifetime.
He had even gained a bit more of a Fairy's state of mind!
He first checked the date. October 9th, six in the evening. Only a single day had passed.
He then searched the room and found the paper Fairy had left on the table. There was still only one sentence on it:
I have taken your instructions to heart.
Lu Xing had actually gotten used to the way she spoke!
Strangely enough, those elders of hers in the mirror did not speak so archaically, yet her wording was so odd. He really did not know who had taught her.
"Hm?"
Lu Xing unexpectedly discovered that several words in the notes he had left had been circled:
Hotel, waiter, traffic lights, class, classmates.
"Those are the keywords she took to heart?"
Lu Xing quickly formed a guess and imagined everything Fairy had done after arriving on Earth:
After arriving at the hotel, she first read the notes Lu Xing had given her. Then she changed clothes and went outside, asking the waiter where breakfast was in an ancient-style tone. After eating, she went downstairs, crossed the street by watching the traffic lights, and successfully made it to school for class.
Just imagining Fairy talking to waiters or other students made Lu Xing want to laugh.
But then he remembered that she was using his body. To everyone else, it would look like he had a split personality...
He could no longer laugh!
"Did I get in touch with you today?"
As usual, Lu Xing sent Xiao Yu a text. While waiting for her reply, he went downstairs for dinner. Halfway through his meal, Xiao Yu's message arrived:
"Still no. Did that Fairy show up?"
"Yes. She's a little different from before, which is why I asked."
"What's different?"
"She's Moved Mortal Heart."
"Ah!?"
Xiao Yu was astonished. After hearing Lu Xing's explanation, she laughed. "She really is a Fairy untouched by worldly matters. I'm getting more and more curious about what she's like in Xianxia World."
After chatting for a while, Xiao Yu told Lu Xing what she had done that day so that he would not be clueless after their next exchange.
Lu Xing also briefly told her what he had done over there. After ending the chat, he asked the classmates in the dorm group what "he" had done that day.
In the end, he learned that aside from staying silent and ignoring people, Fairy had behaved normally.
Lu Xing stopped dwelling on the split-personality issue. As long as he did not get sent flying by a truck, everything else was a minor matter!
The next day, when Lu Xing opened his eyes again, he found that the room had become plainly decorated. The ceiling was nothing but a white wall, the window had no curtains, and he could not even see the scenery outside. The window was purely decorative.
"Welcome back, awakened comrade."
A little girl's electronic voice entered Lu Xing's mind, gradually waking him up.
But Lu Xing did not want to get up just yet. He had finally gone from sleeping amid ice and snow to sleeping in a hotel's big bed, yet after enjoying it for just one night, he had been tossed back into Virtual World.
And it was a Virtual World with insufficient computing power!
"Comrade, please get up. You have two minutes left to get dressed. As a member of the Human Resistance Army, you have yet to report back!"
Smart Hairpin had no intention of indulging him. The moment it saw its comrade sleeping in, it immediately issued a warning.
Unfortunately, Lu Xing was a programmer. He possessed the talent of ignoring warnings.
He waved a hand, signaling the hairpin to be quiet, then curiously asked it:
"I've been wondering about something. Last time, you knew I wasn't your owner as soon as I woke up, and it was the same this time. Why? Are our brain waves different?"
"No, I judged it by gender."
"Huh?"
Somewhat puzzled, Lu Xing lowered his gaze and slightly raised his upper body, taking a look inside Jiang Xuannv's small white underwear.
The girl was still in puberty, as beautiful as a lotus bud. Her skin was flawless, smooth and white as jade.
After confirming it, Lu Xing asked, "I'm using your owner's body right now. We're the same gender!"
"No, we aren't. Your gender, comrade, is human male, while my owner's gender is Intelligent Female."
The hairpin answered with utmost seriousness.
Lu Xing was speechless. "You've completely silenced me. In Future World, gender doesn't refer to biological sex?"
"No, comrade. Was the gender of ancient humans fixed? Updating data..." The hairpin updated its database before answering. "Here, bodies can be changed at will. Consciousness can be transferred, bodies can be replaced, or genes can be rewritten..."
After hearing its explanation, Lu Xing said, half amused and half exasperated, "What you call gender should be called personality instead!"
"What is personality?" Smart Hairpin asked again.
"Personality is..."
"Attention, comrade. Your wake-up time has exceeded three minutes. Please get up and dress immediately!"
Smart Hairpin issued a harsh warning and began vibrating on Lu Xing's head, forcing him to get up at once. In a few quick motions, he put on Jiang Xuannv's incredibly simple two-piece outfit: a gray T-shirt and a pair of long pants.
He then bent down to put on his socks and shoes before immediately heading out.
He had not even looked in a mirror, much less brushed his teeth!
There was no need to use the bathroom either.
Anyone else would definitely have found it hard to get used to, but Lu Xing had lived for ten days in a Fairy's body. He had long adapted to this lifestyle that differed from that of ordinary people.
"Daughter, you're awake?"
The living room was just as it had been last time. Lu Xing saw Jiang Xuannv's Intelligent Being father reading a newspaper, while her mother was busy in the kitchen. Hearing the door open, she poked her head out from the kitchen and greeted him with a gentle smile.
Lu Xing knew that breakfast would definitely be ready in less than a minute.
It was so standardized that it seemed like a program was running.
But Lu Xing was not a program. He had encountered an error.
The Intelligent Being father put down his newspaper, furrowed his brows, and looked at him sternly. "Today, you woke up one minute later than your previous average wake-up time. Did you encounter a problem?"
"Ah!"
His mother was startled and looked over as well.
Lu Xing was a programmer. After his previous experience, he had roughly adapted to Virtual World's operating environment.
What was more, he had discovered that Jiang Xuannv was not helpless. She could fight!
"I was contemplating life."
Faced with his parents' questioning, Lu Xing threw out a chaotic question. No matter how sophisticated or powerful a computer's processing capacity was, it could not provide an answer.
Sure enough, after hearing that question, his parents' movements seemed to slow by a beat, as though they had crashed.
Lu Xing took the opportunity to sit down. Maintaining a young girl's standard sitting posture in Jiang Xuannv's body, he waited at the table for breakfast.
He also asked Smart Hairpin to send over the message Jiang Xuannv had left for him.
"Comrade, what is life?" Smart Hairpin asked instead.
Lu Xing did not know whether to laugh or cry. Had that question actually hit everything in its range?
Just as he was about to answer, Jiang Xuannv's Intelligent Being mother stared blankly at him and asked, "Daughter, why are you thinking about that question? Are you confused about your life?"
His father was watching him.
Unlike last time, Lu Xing was not nervous. He answered calmly, "An ancient philosopher once said, 'I think, therefore I am.' Thinking is a person's instinct. I believe—"
Lu Xing could not continue. This world was virtual, yet the people living within it could not sense that. Aside from Jiang Xuannv, who knew this from the memory chip, no one else knew there was a real world outside.
Besides, the ones before him were not human.
"I'll find the answer!"
Lu Xing finished his sentence, then smiled at his mother. "I still prefer human forms of address. Please call yourself Mother from now on."
He had already noticed that she had called him daughter just now, not by his number.
"Oh, all right, Daughter."
Her response was still somewhat blank.
"Mother, is breakfast ready?"
"Almost. You and your father wait a moment. It will be ready in sixteen seconds."
"..."
Lu Xing was both speechless and amused. In games, a meal took several minutes to cook, and impatient players would have shut the game down long ago.
But in this Virtual World, people had no choice but to obey the program's settings.
Before you continue