Dreams and Reality

"I beg you, please, save my mother."

"Besides my mother, I only have my little sister, who isn't even six months old yet."

Inside the cold rescue room, thick with the pungent scent of disinfectant, Mo Jingchun knelt on the floor, clutching his mother's cold hand and pleading desperately with the doctors.

In the rescue room, neither the doctors nor the nurses paid any attention to Mo Jingchun, who was kneeling on the floor with tears streaming down his face. Everyone's attention was highly focused on the patient they were trying to save.

"Director, the patient is experiencing ventricular fibrillation."

The director, whom the nurse addressed, didn't say a word; he immediately began performing chest compressions, trying to pull the patient back from the brink of death.

Mo Jingchun, who had been pulled out of the rescue room by a nurse, was trembling all over. He had no idea what to do, his mind was a complete blank, and he felt utterly dazed.

Everything had happened so suddenly. They say you never know whether tomorrow or an accident will arrive first, but Mo Jingchun never imagined that an accident would find his mother.

After paying the fees, Mo Jingchun felt his hands and feet go cold, and he slumped powerlessly outside the rescue room door.

Mo Jingchun didn't dare to imagine what would happen to him and his little sister if their mother were gone too.

Ascites! After using his phone to look up the condition the doctor mentioned, Mo Jingchun completely broke down.

He should have noticed something was wrong with his mother's health sooner!

Not long after his little sister was born, Mo Jingchun had noticed that his mother's stomach looked larger than usual, but he had naively assumed it was a normal phenomenon.

One couldn't blame Mo Jingchun for thinking that, because everyone's constitution is different, and many pregnant women experience a distended abdomen after giving birth.

Not to mention Mo Jingchun, even his mother herself hadn't noticed that anything was wrong.

It wasn't until morning, when Mo Jingchun discovered his mother hadn't gotten up and his little sister was crying, that he realized his mother had fallen into a coma and her abdomen was terrifyingly swollen with fluid.

At the service desk by the rescue room entrance, two nurses looked at the dazed Mo Jingchun and sighed. They had seen too much life and death; they had seen every type of patient's family, and they had become numb to it.

Yet, looking at the eighteen-year-old Mo Jingchun at the door, they couldn't help but feel a pang of heartache. They couldn't imagine how someone who had just finished his gaokao, still a child himself, would survive while raising a nursing infant.

"Family of patient Zhou Wan."

As soon as there was movement at the rescue room door, Mo Jingchun stood up hurriedly.

"Doctor, how is my mother?"

"You brought her in too late. We have done everything we could."

"Go take a look at your mother one last time."

The doctor's words hit Mo Jingchun like a bolt from the blue. He couldn't accept the reality.

Beside the hospital bed, Mo Jingchun held his mother's arm and wailed, trying to wake her from her coma, but no matter how he called out, the familiar figure on the bed remained motionless.

"My mother... does that mean she won't wake up again?"

"No. She is only being kept alive by medication and machines now. Once the machines are removed, she will be gone."

At the doctor's words, Mo Jingchun just kept shedding tears, his nose stinging, not knowing what to say.

In the quiet night, moonlight spilled over the earth, painting a vast and beautiful picture.

Under the bright moonlight, the two tear tracks on Mo Jingchun's face were clearly visible. If one looked closely, tiny glimmers of starlight could still be seen in the corners of his eyes.

Suddenly, Mo Jingchun's body jolted as if he had been electrocuted.

The next second, Mo Jingchun opened his eyes, instinctively turning his head to look at the small figure on his right, reaching out to test the air in front of his little sister's nose.

Thank goodness, the little one was still fast asleep, completely carefree.

Mo Jingchun, no longer feeling any sleepiness, just sat on the bed in a daze. This wasn't the first time he had dreamed of the scene of his mother's passing.

Every time he woke from the dream, he would inevitably spend the entire night sleepless.

Looking at the transparent panel that had suddenly appeared in his mind on the same day his mother passed away, Mo Jingchun had never had the time to study it carefully.

After the funeral was handled with the help of relatives and neighbors, Mo Jingchun finally took the time to study the system.

According to the information transmitted by the system, its full name was the Black Technology Lottery System. By completing tasks issued by the system, he could earn points. Points could be used for lottery draws, and the prizes were various types of black technology, along with a certain probability of getting a "thank you for participating."

To Mo Jingchun, who had finished his gaokao just over a month ago, that "certain probability" seemed likely to be quite high.

Host: Mo Jingchun
Age: 18
Points: 0 (used for redeeming lottery attempts)
Lucky Draw Attempts: 1 (Newbie Gift Pack, guaranteed win!)
System Warehouse: None
Tasks: None

Besides the panel, there was a familiar, massive lottery wheel. It was familiar because Mo Jingchun had seen similar wheels in supermarkets more than once, but the difference was that the system's wheel was truly enormous, and the prizes were all sorts of black technology.

There were so many prizes on the wheel that it dazzled Mo Jingchun. There were black technologies he recognized, but even more that he had never even heard of.

He looked at his little sister, Candy, who was still fast asleep, then at the bright full moon outside the window, and Mo Jingchun took a deep breath, making up his mind.

"System, I want to use the newbie lucky draw attempt."

"Respected host, are you sure you want to use the newbie guaranteed-win lucky draw attempt?"

"Use!"

In Mo Jingchun's mind, the transparent light panel immediately transformed into a massive Lucky Draw Wheel. Slowly, the pointer on the wheel began to rotate, and Mo Jingchun's heart hammered against his ribs.

Watching the pointer sweep past one Black Technology after another, Mo Jingchun clenched his fists in tension.

Finally, under Mo Jingchun's skeptical gaze, the pointer stopped dead at the very bottom. Was this too fake? Could the pointer actually be affected by the gravity of Blue Star?

"Congratulations to the esteemed host for winning the Source Code of AI Butler First Generation Jarvis."

"Would the host like to claim it now?"

Mo Jingchun did not choose to claim it immediately. It would be a lie to say he wasn't excited about winning an AI butler; after all, his first choice for university had been the Software Engineering major at Jing University, and his acceptance letter was already on its way.

However, Mo Jingchun remained clear-headed and immediately voiced his doubt to the system.

"System, does the lottery pointer always stop at the very bottom of the Lucky Draw Wheel?"

"No, this time was merely a coincidence."

Mo Jingchun felt a faint sense of disappointment. Come to think of it, if the wheel pointer stopped at the same spot every time, it wouldn't be much of a Black Technology Lottery System.

"System, claim the prize."

A vast amount of information flooded into Mo Jingchun's mind, consisting of lines of code and various algorithmic formulas.

As the massive influx of data hit, Mo Jingchun felt as if his brain had been pierced by a needle, causing him to gasp in pain.

"Hiss~~~"