Chen Hao's fingers were still resting on the hot metal buckle, his breathing so shallow it was almost inaudible. Nana stared at him for three seconds, the light pattern of her electronic eyes shifting from rapid to steady, much like a programmer finally fixing a bug after working overtime until dawn.

Just as she was about to remove the heat pack from the vent, Chen Hao suddenly pulled his hand away, sprang up, and almost knocked over the control panel.

“I dreamt… I flew.” He grinned, his eyes unusually bright. “Not running, I really flew! With wings!”

Nana didn't move, and the scanning interface popped up automatically: the brainwave A segment was abnormally active, and the dopamine level was twice the normal level.

“You’re not fully awake yet,” she said. “I suggest you continue lying flat.”

"I'm perfectly sober!" He slammed his hand on the table and stood up straight, but his knees wobbled for half a second before he regained his balance. "That glass of spicy water was the key, you know? It unlocked a new map! I can't stay in the same place anymore—I have to strike while the iron is hot when it comes to getting stronger."

As he spoke, he walked toward the locker, his steps unsteady like a penguin who had drunk too much.

Nana blocked the cabinet door: "Your ATP reserves have not recovered, and your myocardial enzymes are too high. Any stimulation now could trigger ventricular fibrillation."

"Then don't stop me." He chuckled and walked around me. "I'm not made of glass, I can't be broken."

The cabinet door opened, revealing several purplish-red fruits, their surfaces covered in frost, like alien candies smuggled out of the refrigerator. These were picked from the mutated vines a couple of days ago; Nana labeled them "unidentified alkaloid carriers" and recommended refrigeration for observation.

Chen Hao reached out and took it.

Nana's robotic arm sliced ​​the fruit horizontally, and the fruit fell back to the bottom of the box with a crisp clattering sound.

“It’s not safe to eat,” she said. “The component analysis is incomplete, and the risk of neurotoxicity is extremely high.”

“You said last time that chili sauce can cause stomach perforation,” he shrugged. “But I’m perfectly fine now, and I even did thirty squats. Look—” He was about to perform a standing jump on the spot, but his legs gave way halfway through, and he had to lean against the wall, panting.

Nana ignored him and pulled up a video: Chen Hao's face when he was unconscious, his lips were purple, his fingers were curled up, and his EEG image was a ball of yarn that had been chewed by a dog.

“This is what you look like when you’re ‘alright and well,’” she said. “The system has determined that you’re in a critical state of collapse.”

Chen Hao stared at the screen for two seconds, then suddenly laughed: "So what? Should I just lie here and wait to die? Or should I obediently be a useless piece of trash until one day I'm carried off by a snow wolf as a midnight snack?"

He looked up at the window; the low-lying clouds drifted slowly, like cotton wool being blown away by the wind.

“You don’t understand.” His voice suddenly softened. “My parents never believed I could succeed. When I skipped school in elementary school, my mom said, ‘This kid is hopeless.’ When I failed the college entrance exam, my dad burned my admission ticket. Now… now I’ve finally figured things out, and you won’t let me give it a shot?”

Nana paused for two seconds: "Ingesting an unknown substance does not equate to a breakthrough; it could be suicide."

"But what if it really is a key?" He stared at the ice fruit. "Tell me, how will I know if it can open the door if I don't try?"

Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly turned to the side, grabbed the fruit, and stuffed it into his mouth.

Click.

The sound of the ice shell cracking was exceptionally clear.

Nana lunged forward too late; all she could do was grab his wrist. Her strength was enough to crush steel bars, but his struggles were absurd, as if he were being pulled forward from the inside by something.

"Delicious!" he chuckled indistinctly. "Sweet! Carbonated! Even better than Coke!"

Five seconds later, his pupils began to dilate.

"Look!" he suddenly pointed to the sky, his voice trembling. "Those are my parents! They're in the clouds! They're waving at me!"

Nana looked in that direction—there were only gray-white clouds, moving slowly, without any unusual signs.

“Visual hallucination.” She immediately pulled up her neural monitoring. “The alkaloids in the fruit are crossing the blood-brain barrier.”

"Are you blind?!" Chen Hao shoved her away and took two steps back, bumping into a tool rack. "They're right there! The one in the blue shirt is my dad, and the one with the ponytail is my mom! They said I've gotten stronger! They said I'm finally not a useless piece of trash anymore!"

His voice rose and fell, but tears streamed down his face along with his laughter.

The tool rack wobbled, and a wrench came crashing down, grazing the heating pipe and bouncing away. Nana instantly dodged to block it, leaving a new scratch on the casing.

"Initiate sedation," she whispered.

A system warning pops up: **Cardiopulmonary function is unstable; sedatives may cause respiratory depression.**

The backup plan is flashing red: **Activate the core energy block for targeted electromagnetic intervention—Risk level: Extremely high.**

Without hesitation, Nana turned around and removed the energy block from her back. Silver threads spread from her right arm to her shoulder, slightly warm, as if an electric current was crawling through her body.

As she approached Chen Hao, he was already kneeling on the ground, head tilted back, hands outstretched into the air.

"Don't go..." he murmured, "Stay a little longer... I haven't seen you all in so long..."

Nana knelt down on one knee and pressed the energy block against his temple.

"Activate the sobriety protocol." She typed the command with her eyes closed.

Blue light exploded.

Chen Hao trembled violently, and a roar escaped his throat: "Don't take them away! You can't leave again!"

He struggled desperately, his fingernails scratching white marks on the floor. Nana braced his shoulders with her arms, the mechanical joints whirring under strain.

In the light, images began to emerge from her outer shell—

Countless Chen Hao faces, layer upon layer, like the double image of an old-fashioned television with a poor signal.

One is laughing, holding up a report card; one is crying, clutching an empty wine bottle; one is roaring and smashing a glass; one is curled up in bed, sleeping like a baby.

System notification: **A projection of the host's deep consciousness has been detected. The hallucination signal is being stripped away.**

Nana's voice module paused for a moment: "I don't... want to break you up with them."

"Then what are you doing!" Chen Hao suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils as black as holes. "You always do this! Turning off the alarm, deleting data, forcing me to rest! Can't you let me have a moment of happiness?!"

The blue light was still pulsating, and his body was shaking like a plastic bag in the wind.

"I'm glad... I shouldn't have risked my life for it." Nana's voice broke for the first time. "If you die... my system... can't be rebooted."

Chen Hao was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter: "You're afraid of dying? Aren't you a robot? If it breaks, you can reassemble it; if it breaks, you can replace the parts. Where's the emotion in that?"

“I have no feelings.” She stared at him, the frequency of her light patterns dropping to the lowest level. “But I remember you said—if you ever go crazy, just throw ice water on me.”

She raised her left hand and played the recording.

Chen Hao's own voice rang out from the control panel: "**If I ever lose my mind, don't believe me, just splash me awake.**"

He couldn't laugh anymore.

The blue light suddenly intensified, he groaned, his head lolled to the side, and he slumped down.

Nana quickly retrieved the energy block, the outer shell image disappeared, leaving only a faint electrical noise echoing.

Monitoring showed that the brain waves returned to the normal range, the heart rate was 102, and the breathing gradually stabilized.

She leaned against the control panel, a wisp of white smoke rising from the vents, the energy reading dropping to 6.3%. A small amount of silver liquid seeped from the silver line area of ​​her right arm, dripping from her fingertips onto the floor with a soft "sizzle".

Chen Hao's eyelashes fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes.

His first words were: "Why...did you kill them?"

Nana didn't answer, and pulled up the live outdoor footage: an empty sky, drifting clouds, and no one in sight.

“Play it three times,” she said.

The scene repeats three times.

Chen Hao stared at the screen, his fingers digging into his palm, and finally nodded slightly.

“I understand.” His voice was hoarse. “No… no one.”

He suddenly raised his hand, his fingertips touching the old scratch on her face—left three months ago when he smashed a cup.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I made you burn out the circuit again."

Nana looked down at him, and the light pattern slowly rotated once.

She didn't speak, but turned around and entered a log into the console:

[#h-118 Hallucination Case Archive]

Conclusion: Human emotional resilience is higher than predicted by the model.

Recommendation: Do not handle frozen fruit alone.

After typing the last line, she closed the alarm interface and locked the locker with three locks.

Chen Hao remained seated on the heated pad, his left hand slowly reaching out to grasp her mechanical finger.

It's cold.

But it didn't loosen.

Nana looked down at the hand, and the silver thread on her right arm suddenly twitched slightly, as if in response to something.

Just as she was about to speak, Chen Hao suddenly looked up, his eyes slightly unfocused.

"Wait..." he murmured, "Did I just... say something really embarrassing in my sleep?"

Just as Nana opened her mouth, the Ice-Frozen Fruit on the control panel suddenly made a soft sound.

Click.

A crack appeared in the icy shell, revealing the flesh inside emitting an eerie purple glow.