Peeping Pervert

After class.

Shangguan Xiaotao and her best friend leaned against a tree.

The girl really was beautiful.

Nearly 1.7 meters tall, she wore a short blue skirt, a fitted white short-sleeved top, and a pair of petite black combat boots. Black knee-high socks reached just below her knees, leaving a stretch of her lovely legs exposed, snowy white without a trace of excess fat.

Even after a full day of classes, faint tear tracks still lingered at the corners of Shangguan Xiaotao's eyes.

Clearly, the leak of her private photos had hurt her deeply.

Just then.

A boy wearing a black jacket, black jeans, and black canvas shoes, with a black crossbody bag slung over his shoulder, came down the stairs.

Shangguan Xiaotao and her best friend suddenly fell into a daze.

"Do you think, when we grow up, we'll keep remembering those moments from our school days that made our hearts flutter?"

Standing where she was, Shangguan Xiaotao tilted her head up and murmured, "Like meeting on the stairs, that instant when he comes down with the light behind him and our eyes meet. Things like that... I might never forget them for the rest of my life."

"So you still like Qin Yiguan."

Her best friend clicked her tongue, looking disdainful, though a whole series of associations had instantly sprung to mind as well.

Everyone had their younger days.

And right now, they were living theirs.

Her best friend whispered, "He has a mental illness, you know. Maybe he thinks snooping through someone else's electronic textbook is perfectly normal!"

Shangguan Xiaotao said dreamily, "Don't make things up. Look at him... he's so calm, so quiet. He always seems so harmless, just sitting silently in a corner. Isn't that nice? I don't think he'd do something like that. He... might be coming to comfort me."

"Xiaotao."

The boy named Qin Yiguan stood before the two girls, slowly lowered his head, and spoke softly.

"Yes?"

Shangguan Xiaotao's beautiful eyes widened, their edges still a little red and swollen. "Qin Yiguan, I believe you. Whoever snooped through my textbook, it definitely wasn't you."

"Thank you for trusting me."

"Of course it wasn't me."

The boy nodded slightly with a faint smile. "If it's convenient, I'd like to borrow ten minutes of your time."

Shangguan Xiaotao tucked back her hair, a blush spreading across her cheeks. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

"Yes."

Qin Yiguan tugged at his bag strap. "I'd like to borrow your electronic textbook, then take a close look at those private photos of yours."

"???"

Shangguan Xiaotao's hand froze halfway through brushing back her hair.

Her best friend froze too.

"Oh."

"Please don't misunderstand."

The boy remained perfectly composed. "I have a certain talent for solving cases. I want to examine those photos to reconstruct the culprit's mindset and track him down."

Her best friend lost it. "Qin Yiguan, are you sick in the head? Now I actually think you weren't the one who snooped through Xiaotao's photos before. But you're even worse! You want to make up for missing out!"

"..."

The boy pressed his lips together. "Even the police trust me. Please trust me too..."

"Trust you?"

"You're seriously sick!"

"A total pervert!"

Her best friend grabbed the stunned Shangguan Xiaotao and glared at Qin Yiguan. "Back off! Back off! Back off! Or I'll call for help!"

She pulled Shangguan Xiaotao away, hurrying off as though fleeing the plague.

All Qin Yiguan could see was Shangguan Xiaotao repeatedly looking back at him, her eyes filled with shock.

"Didn't they say she had clothes on?"

"I really just wanted to solve the case."

The boy stood where he was.

What he didn't know was that Jiu Zhengxuan was standing below the teaching building, watching Qin Yiguan from afar.

They were too far away for Jiu Zhengxuan to hear the details of their conversation.

All he could hear was Xiaotao's best friend shouting, "You're sick!" and "You're a pervert!" over and over.

Jiu Zhengxuan's brow gradually furrowed.

The next moment.

Qin Yiguan made the motion of removing his helmet.

His body dissolved into code and vanished.

Jiu Zhengxuan's brow tightened again. "He even logs out whenever he wants. There's definitely something wrong with him!"

Back in reality, the boy pushed open the door of his little apartment.

He had just emptied his bag and was planning to head to the Central District to borrow some food.

Instead, he found a girl in a wheelchair waiting quietly outside his door.

"Brother."

With her eyes closed, Xiao Ning gave him a gentle smile.

The sixteen-year-old girl had been disabled from birth and could not walk.

Her eyes had also been defective since birth. She could not open them and had never seen the light.

She wore an embroidered dress and sat in her wheelchair. As the sun sank in the west, its orange glow washed over her silhouette, making her look utterly serene.

The boy crouched to inspect the electric wheelchair he had repaired more than a dozen times over the past three years, making sure nothing else had broken.

"Don't come so far on your own next time."

Xiao Ning lived on the western side of Rust City 03, a full three kilometers from Qin Yiguan's apartment.

Xiao Ning smiled, then suddenly held out an energy block wrapped in plastic film.

Unlike the ones handed out by the government, this energy block had a faint caramel tint.

Xiao Ning smiled and said, "Energy blocks taste awful, so I used the chocolate you gave me before to improve this one. I melted it down and added the chocolate. It tastes really sweet now."

The boy smiled and accepted it without standing on ceremony, taking a bite right away.

The energy block's texture hadn't changed. It was soft, like a pastry.

But the rich aroma of chocolate made the one in his hand taste far better than before.

The boy looked at the kindhearted Xiao Ning.

For years, he had thought of her as his little sister.

Unlike the boy, Xiao Ning had no brain disorder. Three years ago, she had even successfully applied for a Nutrient Pod.

But through Xiao Ning's case, the authorities had discovered another restriction.

Xiao Ning had been born with physical defects, but her disabled legs weren't a major obstacle to entering the Metaverse.

Her eyes, however, had become a barrier.

Xiao Ning had been born without optic nerves. As she grew, her brain received no visual signals, so the neural pathways responsible for processing vision gradually deteriorated.

And all human "sensory data" had to be interpreted by the brain.

In other words, her brain had lost the ability to process visual information.

After she entered the Metaverse.

The Metaverse sent visual signals directly to her brain, but her brain couldn't process them.

Then she saw a bizarre world.

The buildings were warped, and so were the people.

According to Xiao Ning's description, people looked like tangled masses of black hemp rope, dripping with black slime. When they moved, the ropes writhed constantly like black venomous snakes coiled together.

And all the buildings looked like black asphalt that kept melting.

When people wanted to enter or use a building, that "asphalt" began to solidify, keeping it from falling apart.

Back then, Xiao Ning suffered several mental breakdowns.

She had thought that entering the Metaverse would let her see the light through the power of technology. Instead, she had witnessed a scene straight out of hell.

Later.

Unsurprisingly, Xiao Ning was stripped of her eligibility to log into the Metaverse. She couldn't enter it for even a minute.

Her parents were even more heartless and abandoned her outright.

In the end, Xiao Ning became one of the Castoffs, living alone in Rust City.

"Everyone in Rust City is family."

Qin Yiguan finished the energy block in his hand in a few bites.