System 615 trembled as it curled into a ball and desperately squeezed into the mouse hole, its two front paws crossed over its chest.
Its rodent eyes furtively watched Little Chu Xuanzhen talking to its host, its whiskers twitching.
The giant rat was so frightened by the person who had suddenly appeared that even its tail went rigid. The rat's own consciousness still remained in its body, but even if it feared a human like Chu Xuanzhen, it should not have been this terrified. Yet System 615 still attributed all that fear to the giant rat whose consciousness lingered within.
Suddenly, System 615 met a pair of deep, pitch-black eyes. The murderous chill within them swept toward it in an instant, invisible yet palpable.
System 615: !
It abruptly backed up and squeezed farther inside. Only when its entire body had vanished into the darkness did those deep eyes look away.
That had scared it to death.
Fine, it was only a mass of data. It could not die, only crash or be deleted. But for that brief instant, those words had inexplicably flashed through its rat brain.
Shen Yangge had not noticed any of these details. Seeing Chu Xuanzhen's gaze shift from his hands to his face, he said quietly, "...Your Highness, just consider it me talking to myself."
"Yang'er, crouch down."
This... this was fucking cheating, wasn't it?
He tipped up that childish face and called Shen Yangge's name so affectionately, his youthful voice seeming to carry a trace of longing. Shen Yangge froze for a moment.
Then he really did lower himself onto one knee.
The moment his eyes were level with Chu Xuanzhen's, Chu Xuanzhen reached up and wiped his face. Then he took a handkerchief from inside his robes, held Shen Yangge's wrist, and carefully,