Nangong Yao offered no further explanation, simply continuing to read out the things Qin Shu needed to enter.
I could see what was giving Qin Shu trouble.
The things that made no sense to me, had no apparent connection, and could only be entered by rote were just as difficult for Qin Shu.
If that were all, then with me and Xu Jiu taking over, we'd only have been a little slower at typing. We could still have served as nothing more than typists.
But after a while, Nangong Yao had Qin Shu save the document and run it, then open some kind of system program and start rewriting its contents.
Qin Shu handled these steps smoothly, while Xu Jiu and I stared blankly at the completely unfamiliar program window.
By the time the whole process was finished, time had flown by.
When I came to, I saw that an hour had passed on the computer's clock.
We hadn't spent that long in any of those spaces.
For an hour, Nangong Yao's voice and the sound of Qin Shu typing had filled my ears. When they suddenly stopped, I felt strangely unsettled.
"Done," Nangong Yao said.
Qin Shu clicked the mouse and ran the program.
The computer display flickered once, like a minor glitch caused by a loose connection, then quickly returned to normal. That didn't last long. The screen flickered several more times.
Qin Shu asked Nangong Yao anxiously what was happening.
With a sharp crackle, the computer emitted electrical static, and a hiss came through the speakers.
The video call window disconnected, and every window on the desktop closed by itself. Then the computer screen split horizontally, like an old television, and went completely black.
"Did it freeze?" Xu Jiu asked. "Or did it restart?"
"I don't know.