Little Screw and Little Bell

Early in the morning, after Shiling's Mother got up, she was surprised to find that her daughter had also gotten up early and was brushing her teeth and washing her face by herself.

Good morning, Mom!

"Ah, good morning."

Shiling's Mother watched as her daughter finished washing up and skipped back to her room to bother the still-sleeping Egg Pie, pouring it cat food. She couldn't help but wonder, why was this girl so happy this morning?

I glanced at the calendar on my phone. Today wasn't the weekend, nor was it any special day. Her bald uncle, chicken wing sister, and pretty sister hadn't mentioned coming to Star City anytime soon.

Are there any new cartoons going to air? No, my daughter hasn't watched many cartoons in a long time. Now she's most interested in drawing, reading science books, and learning to read.

Did the teacher praise or compliment you yesterday? No, if that were the case, you would have been showing off on the way home from kindergarten yesterday.

Suddenly, Shiling's Mother heard her daughter humming a song. Curious, she forgot about washing up and followed her into her daughter's room to listen intently.

Liu Shiling squatted beside the Egg Pie, humming a song as she poured cat food into its bowl:

"Little Screw, beep beep beep blow."

The cat spread its wings and flew away after hearing that.

Little Screw, beep beep beep~.

The rabbit smiled slightly upon hearing this.

Little Screw, beep beep beep~.

Let's fight the monsters together!

Although her daughter sang a little off-key, Shiling's Mother still recognized it as a children's song called "Little Conch Shell," which she had taught her daughter before.

However, after learning it, Liu Shiling said that everyone in kindergarten learned other songs and didn't like singing this one.

This was the first time she had heard her daughter sing this song on her own initiative, but the lyrics were all jumbled up; she even remembered "little conch shell" as "Little Screw."

And there's a cat spreading its wings and flying, a rabbit smiling, and even fighting monsters? Is this some kind of tale from "The White Dragon Horse"?

"Shiling, what made you so happy? You're even singing!" Shiling's Mother asked, leaning against the doorframe.

After Liu Shiling Egg Pie feeding the cat, she reached out and stroked its head, then looked up at her mother and said, "I had a wonderful dream last night!"

Shiling's Mother laughed and said, "Oh? What sweet dream? Did you dream about eating something delicious?"

Liu Shiling said, "I dreamt that I was fighting monsters with a little girl! Then I took her to eat Chocolate, Ice Cream, grilled fish, and other delicious food. I took her to our kindergarten, taught her origami, taught her to draw, watched cartoons with her, and went down the slide together..."

Looking at her daughter, Shiling's eyes crinkling with laughter as she described her dream, Shiling's Mother felt a pang of heartache. She thought it was because her daughter had been lonely for so long that even dreaming of a playmate made her so excited.

"Shiling, when you come home from kindergarten, you can play with Xiao Mei more often, and invite her over for a visit, okay?" Shiling's Mother suggested.

According to her observation, after they moved to Star City, Liu Shiling talked to Xiao Mei, who was in the same kindergarten and lived in the same community, the person she interacted with the most.

Liu Shiling said, "No, I can't Xiao Mei over to play after school."

Shiling's Mother's heart skipped a beat, and she asked, "Did... you and Xiao Mei have a fight? Or does she not want to come to our house to play?"

"No, Xiao Mei always invites me to her house to play whenever she sees me, but I'm too busy to play!" Liu Shiling said. "I need to draw, learn to read, learn knowledge, practice magic... practice writing, and train my Egg Pie. Xiao Mei, Da Lu, and I can chat on QQ. We have a group chat, Mom, didn't you see it? Now Xiao Mei is also learning to draw with Da Lu."

Shiling's Mother paused for a moment, looking somewhat dazed, when she suddenly remembered a video she had seen before, discussing the topic of "what it's like to have a child who is too sensible."

"Mom, are you going to make me breakfast?" Liu Shiling asked, puzzled, when she saw her mother standing blankly at her bedroom door.

"Oh, okay, I'll go make you breakfast right away." Shiling's Mother snapped out of her reverie and was about to turn and head to the kitchen when she remembered something and stopped to ask, "By the way, Shiling, was that the little Little Screw shell you were humming that I taught you before? You sang the lyrics wrong! It's a little conch shell, not a musical instrument. It's a conch shell, and Little Screw is something that goes into a machine. Although it has a 'shell' in it, it has nothing to do with a conch shell."

"I know, I made it up. The little sister I met in my dream Little Screw," Liu Shiling said.

Shiling's Mother couldn't help but laugh. What little girl would be named "Little Screw"? However, her daughter's naming style was quite different from usual. Normally, shouldn't she be named something like "Little Steamed Bun," "Little Lobster," or "Little Bun"?

If the "little sister" in my daughter's dream were actually conscious, she would probably strongly protest being given such a name.

While her mother went to cook, Liu Shiling grabbed the iPad and entered an IP address into the browser.

This was what "Little Screw" told her at the end of her dream.

Such a long string of numbers, which had to be memorized in order, and with each dot having to be located, would be very difficult for Liu Shiling to remember in reality if only explained once. But in her dream, "Little Screw" demonstrated it to her, and she clearly remembered the operation process and the row of numbers.

After entering the IP address and clicking "Go", a percentage progress bar quickly appeared on the browser interface. When the progress bar reached 100%, a simple line drawing of two little people holding hands appeared in front of Liu Shiling.

"Ha!" Liu Shiling cheered, but immediately covered her mouth with her hand. Then she looked back at the door and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her mother still in the kitchen making breakfast for her.

She turned around, holding her iPad, and looked at the rather simple drawing with delight.

This picture was taught to "Little Screw" in a dream; the two little figures on it are naturally Alice and herself.

In fact, several hours earlier, Xiang Kun and Lao Xia had already had a similar feeling to Shiling's Mother — Alice was very cheerful after leaving the dream.

However, Xiang Kun and Lao Xia, as "observers" who had been perceiving the dream, naturally knew that all of this was because Alice "knew" Liu Shiling.

But neither of them expected that just getting to know the Little Chubby Girl in the dream and exchanging a few words would significantly improve Alice's integration into the "dream," far surpassing the progress they had made with Lao Xia over the past week.

There's no need for detailed comparisons, statistics, or analysis; Alice's behavior underwent very obvious changes from the very beginning of the dream until its end.

At first, she was still confused and could only react to certain words. But before the dream ended, she was able to draw under the guidance of the Little Chubby Girl, answer some new and not very complicated questions, and even take the initiative to teach the Little Chubby Girl to visit a page she made. While she was demonstrating the page to the Little Chubby Girl in the dream, it was also being created in reality at the same time.

But what surprised Xiang Kun and Lao Xia the most was the picture Alice drew in their dream.

That drawing was actually very poor and very simple, even worse than the Little Chubby Girl before she started learning to draw. You could barely make out that it was two people holding hands, and it would be normal to see two small trees side by side if you were a little further away.

But it was precisely because the drawing was poor that it surprised them.

Given Alice's abilities, it wouldn't be surprising if she could create a "realistic painting" that rivals a photograph. But the clumsy lines in the painting in the dream truly prove the existence of the "thought" she extracted under "extrasensory information."

After the dream ended, Lao Xia tried to recreate Alice. Without increasing the number of "Super-Linked Object" she had contacted, Alice's existence time was greatly increased to seven seconds, which was a significant leap forward.

Clearly, the refinement of Alice's "thoughts" in the dream is indeed rapidly helping her integrate into the "Super-Sensing Item System" and significantly enhancing her ability to analyze "hypersensory information."

At this rate, if Alice and the Little Chubby Girl "play" a few more times in her dreams, Alice will basically be fully integrated into the "Super-Sensing Item System." Then she should be able to actively call up the functions of "Super-Linked Object" and "Emotion-Infused Object." As for what specific abilities she will have at that time, it is currently unknown.

It's unbelievable that the solutions Xiang Kun and Lao Xia came up with through rational analysis, constant experimentation, and various deductions were not as effective as the Little Chubby Girl happily treating Alice to food and playing in her dream.

However, it's understandable. After all, Alice is different from all the life forms that Xiang Kun and Lao Xia know. Her way of thinking and emotions cannot be taught by any textbook or existing knowledge.

But after the dream ended last night, Alice was a bit too cheerful, constantly chatting with Xiang Kun and Lao Xia about the information in the dream. At the beginning, this was naturally a good match for the two who wanted to analyze the integration of Alice with the "Super-Sensing Item System".

However, after they had made an accurate assessment of the situation, Alice's talkative mode intensified. She even found a lot of information about Chocolate, Ice Cream, and saury online to discuss with Xiang Kun, researching which Ice Cream Liu Shiling preferred, which Chocolate was tastier, and thirty ways to cook saury, etc.

Xiang Kun asked, "How do you define your relationship with Liu Shiling?"

Alice: "I'm Alice, I'm Little Screw Sister, she's Liu Shiling, she's Little Bell Sister, we'll eat delicious food together, play fun games together, protect the world together, and fight monsters!"

Before Xiang Kun could ask any questions, Alice continued, "Boss, next time Lao Xia appears in my dream, could you let me have a piece of Chocolate? I want to taste it and see how it's different from the one in my dream. Boss, what flavor of Chocolate do you like? I'll order it for you. Order now, and it'll arrive tomorrow afternoon! We can try it together then? Oh, right, boss, you can't eat, so I'll eat with Lao Xia! Lao Xia, Lao Xia, do you like Chocolate? Oh dear, Lao Xia, why are you asleep again!"

Touching the speaker that kept vibrating, Xiang Kun couldn't help but worry. Alice, who wasn't fully integrated yet and was just a slightly slow-witted and adorable girl in the dream, was already so lively and excited after returning to reality. If she were to fully integrate in the dream and be completely incorporated into the "Super-Sensing Item System," would the real-life Alice become a neurotic girl?

However, he dismissed this worry in an instant, because he immediately realized that the reason for this was that Alice had not yet been fully incorporated into the "Super-Sensing Item System." During the "Dream Within a Dream," only a portion of her information was extracted into the "extrasensory information," resulting in this "split" "personality" behavior.

Once fully integrated, she will be the only one in the "extrasensory information," and the two sides will be completely unified.

However, to prevent Alice from focusing too much on the taste of the various foods, he continued to assign her tasks.

The task involves using the location sensing information provided by the ball inserted into the drone to deduce the possible destination of the drone.

Xiang Kun had been to Peng City before, so he was able to determine that the orb was located Peng City. However, he hadn't stayed in Peng City for long and had only visited a limited number of places, and this was before the mutation, so he couldn't accurately pinpoint the orb's exact location in Peng City.

However, he can mark the places he has been to before on a map in his mind as a reference, and then determine which side of the reference location the ball is sensing, thereby roughly estimating which area of Peng City the ball is located in.

He then had Alice search online for companies and properties in Peng City associated with "Shenxing Technology" and find buildings located in that area.

Based on his previous investigations, even though the research centers, Research Base, and personnel of "Shenxing Technology" were relatively low-key and secretive, and not seen in various media or online social platforms, they were actually "open and aboveboard" in a certain sense. Anyone with a real interest could find the connection directly if they investigated, and everything could be linked to "Shenxing Technology".

This situation, on the one hand, confirms his previous inference about the connection between "Shenxing Technology" and the government, and on the other hand, it facilitates his investigation.

He had actually assigned this task to Alice a week ago, but at that time the focus was still on Alice's "Dream Within a Dream" training, and it was arranged as a long-term, secondary task.

But now, in order to help Alice temporarily calm down from the "excitement" of meeting new friends and gaining a new self-awareness, Xiang Kun asked her to concentrate her resources on solving this task.

Having been freed from the "shackles" of the internet by Xiang Kun, Alice naturally found it very easy to find this kind of relevant information.

But precisely because of this, the results of the investigation gave Xiang Kun a huge headache, because there were just too many of them.

It is obvious that Peng City is a city that "Shenxing Technology" focuses on developing. There are too many companies, assets and properties related to it. Before Xiang Kun personally "measured" the relevant areas of Peng City, he had no way to mark the distance between the ball and the reference position, which made the area very large.

Xiang Kun felt that the best solution was for him to make a trip to Peng City to locate the ball himself, which would definitely lead him to its location.

It just so happens that Nana and Zhen'er are still in Peng City, and they've been asking him to solve the last few issues before the game's launch, so I decided to go there myself.

Thinking of the "flying Mutated Creature" that fought the "mutated bird" at Wushu Mountain that day, Xiang Kun entered "Hyper-Sensory State" to sense the Rabbit Woodcarving, preparing to check on the "Mutated Creature" that had taken the Rabbit Woodcarving away earlier.

He had previously suspected that the "flying Mutated Creature" from Wushu Mountain and the "Mutated Creature" that took away the Rabbit Woodcarving were the same one, since they were both suspected to be related to "Shenxing Technology".