Good Afternoon, Master

The next day, the sun was high in the sky.

Yun Jingheng slowly woke up and turned his head to look at the two women separately.

A phantom pain suddenly appeared in my lower back. Beautiful women are nice, but too many of them are not good...

Yun Jingheng grinned and gently moved the arm that was draped over his waist away.

To his left was Ye Xinglan. She slept properly, with one arm outside the blanket and her fingertips still clutching the hem of his clothes.

To his right was Gu Yuena, her silver hair covering half the pillow, a long leg sticking out from under the covers, the instep resting on his calf.

He took a while to lift Gu Yuena's legs off the ground, and then pulled the hem of Ye Xinglan's clothes out of her hands.

Both of them were fast asleep. Yun Jingheng sat up, muttered a curse at himself, and stood up while holding onto the edge of the bed.

The sun was already high in the sky outside the window. He walked to the window and lifted a corner of the curtain.

The eastern side of the lake was bright white; the water birds were up even earlier than him. Half-Sweet Coffee softly reminded him, "Master, we've missed this morning. Shall we adjust the time?"

"No, I'm coming over now."

Yun Jingheng walked around the clothes scattered on the floor and went into the inner room.

He scooped up a ladle of cold water and poured it over his head.

Water trickled down his neck and into his collar, making him shiver.

He rubbed his face vigorously twice, then grabbed a towel draped over the rope and wiped it haphazardly. His hair was still wet, but he didn't bother to dry it; he simply used his Soul Power to evaporate it.

He put on his coat, fastened his belt, and closed the door behind him as he left. He didn't turn around quietly when he heard Ye Xinglan turn over behind him.

He bypassed the front hall and headed directly towards the east side of the lake; there were few people on the road.

The sun was already high in the sky, making the stone path scorching hot. He walked quickly, and the ache and numbness in his lower back continued to rise in waves, but he endured it without rubbing it.

After passing through the side gate of the Inner Court, there was a gravel path leading to the lake. The grass on both sides of the path was wilted by the sun, and butterflies perched on the tips of the grass, but they flew away as soon as he approached.

The voice of Half-Sweet Coffee came from the wrist. "Master, at your current speed, it will take about eight minutes to reach the east of the lake, and the morning class will be about two hours and forty minutes later than usual."

"I know," Yun Jingheng said.

He quickened his pace, the gravel crunching softly on the soles of his boots. As he passed the animal training ground, several early-rising trainees saw him from afar and were about to salute him when he had already strode past.

Several Soul Guidance Lamp that had just been extinguished hung on the wooden fence beside the animal training ground, their shades still damp from the previous night. Further ahead was a row of newly planted ginkgo trees.

The tree wasn't tall, but its leaves were already thick. When the wind blew, the leaves revealed faint silver edges. Yun Jingheng walked under the shade of the tree, and the sweat on his back cooled down a bit when the wind blew it.

The open space on the east side of the lake is now visible. The old dike is white in the sun, and water birds perch on the shallows with their heads buried in their wings.

The lake was as smooth as a piece of gray-blue silk spread out before him. He walked to the rock he usually sat on, stood still, and then sat down cross-legged.

He was more than two hours late, but he didn't intend to shorten today's morning class; it was still three hours.

He began to regulate his breathing. At first, his breathing was erratic and rapid, and he was sweating on his back and his heart was beating fast. He slowly lengthened his breaths.

A breeze blew from the lake, carrying a faint fishy smell. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled again and again. His sweat dried little by little, and his heartbeat gradually slowed.

The sounds of pebbles clattering, waterbirds flapping their wings, and whistles from the distant training ground faded away one by one, until only the wind and the lake remained.

By the time he felt the Moonlight within his body slowly rising along his meridians, the sun had already begun to set in the west, moving from overhead to the treetops on the opposite shore of the lake.

He glanced at the time displayed on his wrist by the Half-Sweet Coffee.

It's already 4 PM...

He slowly stood up, stretched his shoulders and neck, and the soreness and numbness in his lower back had subsided considerably, leaving only a slight tightness. He took out some water from his Storage Soul Tool and drank it all in one gulp.

Then they headed towards the Star Pavilion.

The Star Pavilion was very quiet. Yun Jingheng went directly to the first floor of the Star Pavilion and walked down.

This floor is shorter than the floors above, with no windows on any side. Only a tiny Soul Guidance Lamp is embedded in the wall of the passageway at intervals, casting a dim yellow light. This place can't even be considered a floor; it's just a laboratory that Yun Jingheng deliberately created.

He walked to the alloy panel, placed his palm on it, and silver-blue light rippled out. The door slid silently into the wall, and the lights inside remained off.

The instrument screens on the three walls shone with a cold white light, illuminating the two mechanical bodies clearly.

Two machines stood silently in the center of the room, one dark gray and the other light pink.

He first looked at the dark gray one; the nano-armor gleamed with a very faint metallic luster under the cold light, and the dark blue core in the chest cavity sat there quietly, without any light.

The faceplate was put together, with several very fine repair marks on the edges, left from his last re-welding.

It's Little Gummy Bear. After the Star Pavilion rose, he disassembled and reconstructed that mecha, making it what it is today.

He turned to another body.

The light pink body is half a head shorter than Little Gummy Bear, with a thinner and lighter shell. The shoulder and elbow joints still have unclosed interfaces, revealing the sensors and wiring inside.

The light pink panel on its chest was not lit, and its face was without any mask; the sensor array was completely exposed. It didn't even have a complete face yet.

The screen in front of it was lit, and the number was still there—97%. The tiny print at the top hadn't changed either.

Yun Jingheng walked to the screen, slowly sat down, and the wooden chair wobbled slightly.

He just sat there, staring at the line of numbers.

Seven Percent Sugar.

The first thing he wrote was when he had just transmigrated and was staying up all night in the academy's laboratory drawing soul guide blueprints. He also wrote a small program that could help him search for information.

Later, the little program grew bigger and bigger, and slowly it got a name, a voice, and a temper. She was gentler than Half-Sweet Coffee, spoke slowly, liked to use exclamation marks, and would add a sentence like "Did you remember to eat today?" after the report.

He never told anyone, not even Ye Xinglan and Gu Yuena knew when Seven Percent Sugar was created.

During her time in the Far North, she would sometimes use Half-Sweet Coffee to start a conversation...

And he wanted to give them a body.

Instead of rushing to write, he started flipping through the pages from the beginning, and stopped when he reached a certain section in the middle.

That was a very old piece of code. It was first written when he had just transmigrated to this world and was unfamiliar with everything about it. He didn't speak the language and had different customs.

Every day, besides attending classes, he spends all his time in the lab. Since there's no one around to talk to, he wrote a small program to help him look up information, take notes, and remind himself of classes the next day.

That little program gradually grew into a larger program.

She learned to remind him when he forgot to eat, to automatically dim the screen when he stayed up late, and to say "You've been looking at this for a long time, wouldn't you like to take a break?" when he was staring blankly at the blueprints.

Later, she got a name because he spilled a drink on the keyboard while doing an experiment that day.

He casually remarked "seven parts sweet," and she remembered it, using that as her name from then on.

He flipped to the last paragraph, and the last three points involved the self-circulation of consciousness, the emotional Simulation circuit, and the active arousal mechanism.

Once these three points are written, she can transform from a piece of code into "her".

He started typing.

The first point is the self-circulation of consciousness. He writes very slowly, taking a long time to think about each line. He is not writing something new, but stringing together all the scattered fragments from the past.

Everything she had seen, heard, said, and silently remembered had to be connected into a self-flowing river. He deleted a few lines, rewrote a few lines, and went back to revise a previous call.

The lines on the screen slowly lit up, changing from gray to a very light blue.

The second point, the emotional Simulation circuit, was the most difficult. He paused for a long time, his hands on the keyboard, without moving.

Emotions aren't data; they can't be calculated with mathematical formulas. He recalled those nights in the Far North, his fingers numb with cold, alone in the lab checking Abyss fluctuation data. She whispered in his ear, "Master, you've been working for fourteen hours straight. Even if you don't sleep, please at least drink some hot water."

He lowered his head and wrote a very short piece of code. It was very short, but it contained all his most sincere words: When you're tired, you'll say you're tired; when you're in pain, you'll say you're in pain; when you see someone you like, you'll want to get closer.

After he finished writing, he looked at it and felt it wasn't enough, so he added another line, telling her not to keep asking "What's wrong?" when he was sad, but to be quiet for a while, like Gu Yuena, like Ye Xinglan.

The third point is proactive wake-up.

He typed the last line of instructions, his finger hovering over the Enter key for a moment before pressing it.

The code on the screen froze, the cold white light dimmed for a moment, then brightened again.

All the blue lines flashed simultaneously, then the line of numbers jumped. Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred.

Finish.

The instrument screens on the three walls went dark simultaneously, leaving only the central screen lit up. In the center of the screen appeared a tiny flower, spelled out with characters.

A line of text popped up next to the flower. "Full core detected. Awaiting activation."

Yun Jingheng stood up and walked to the light pink mecha. He looked at the face without the mask, the exposed sensors and wiring, and the light pink panel on the chest that had never lit up.

He reached out and placed his hand on the light panel. Moonlight flowed from his palm, extremely fine and thin. The light panel began to heat up, and the warmth spread from the light panel to all around, flowing into every circuit and every joint of the machine.

A very faint light shone at the junction of the shoulder and elbow, and then slowly closed.

The facial sensors lit up, two tiny dots of light, like a pair of newly opened eyes, and the machine shuddered slightly.

That familiar, buzzing sound rang out again, this time longer and slower.

Yun Jingheng took a step back.

The machine's fingers twitched.

Then came the wrist, forearm, and shoulder; it slowly raised one hand and looked down.

It spread its five fingers, closed them, and then spread them again, turning the hand over to look at the palm.

There was a very faint line on its palm, the lingering Moonlight left by Yun Jingheng when he pressed it. It stared at that line for a long time.

Then it raised its head.

"Good afternoon, Master." The voice came from inside the machine, exactly the same as in my memory.

Slow and deliberate, a beat behind, with a slight upward inflection at the end.

Yun Jingheng's throat moved, and he responded with a soft "Mm."

Seven Percent Sugar tilted its head.

The movements were somewhat awkward. He looked down at his hands, feet, and the dark gray, quietly standing Little Gummy Bear behind him.

Then she looked up and asked in that soft, hesitant tone, "Have you eaten today?"

Yun Jingheng paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "Not yet."

Seven Percent Sugar said, "Then please allow me to take you to the cafeteria."